Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
Who owns the Jewish Chronicle? The question has been asked for several years but it becomes all the more pertinent after a bruising few days for the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper. Over the weekend high-profile columnists including David Baddiel and Jonathan Freedland resigned after the JC was accused of fabricating articles about the Gaza conflict. The paper has now removed the articles, written under the byline Elon Perry, who presented himself as a freelance journalist and cited ‘unnamed Israeli intelligence sources’ in his reporting. It’s unclear who Perry is or how he came to write for the paper, just as its ownership has been a mystery since it was taken over by a consortium led by Sir Robbie Gibb, the former Downing Street comms chief, in 2020 (Gibb’s own pockets aren’t thought to be deep). Freedland wrote in his resignation letter that there can be no accountability while “the JC is owned by a person or people who refuse to reveal themselves”.
