Statement on editorial practices at the Jewish Chronicle

In 2024, the Jewish Chronicle announced that it had removed a series of articles from its website about the war in Gaza which had been submitted by a freelance journalist. This renewed concerns about standards which had up to that point been showing improvement.

The Jewish Chronicle has engaged seriously and meaningfully with IPSO and has committed to overhauling its editorial processes in areas where improvements were found to be needed.

This report sets out the issues at the Jewish Chronicle which have been examined by IPSO and the publisher’s responses to IPSO’s inquiries into its editorial standards.

Background to concerns at the Jewish Chronicle

A pattern of upheld complaints at the Jewish Chronicle emerged in 2019 which caused concerns about editorial standards and delays in dealing with complaints.  From early 2020, IPSO began engaging closely with senior staff at the Chronicle to address these concerns.

Throughout 2021 and 2022, IPSO closely monitored the complaints which were received about articles published in the Jewish Chronicle. All editorial and compliance staff members were required to attend IPSO training on the Editors’ Code of Practice, the set of rules against which IPSO regulates, in 2021.

In 2023, the Chronicle appointed a Managing Editor to handle complaints in-house, replacing an external consultant who had formerly dealt with complaints. Following this appointment, IPSO identified improvements in the Chronicle’s practices. This included more timely responses to complaints and offers of correction where needed, and a more positive approach to mediation with complainants. There were no upheld complaints against the Chronicle in 2024.

IPSO offers free training to all the titles it regulates and provided in-person training to the Jewish Chronicle newsroom staff in July 2024 on Clause 1 (Accuracy) and Clause 2 (Privacy), building on the publication’s in-house training programme and the required IPSO training undertaken in 2021.

New concerns about editorial standards at the Jewish Chronicle and IPSO’s response in 2024

In September 2024, IPSO became aware of reports in the Israeli and UK press that the Jewish Chronicle had published a number of articles about the war in Gaza which were alleged to have been fabricated. The articles had been written and submitted for publication by a freelance journalist and drew extensively on material attributed to confidential security sources within Israel.

On 13 September 2024, the Jewish Chronicle announced that it had removed these articles from its website following its own investigation into the credentials of the freelance contributor and stated that it “deeply regret[ed] the chain of events”. It apologised to its readers and confirmed that it had conducted a review of its internal processes.

Engagement between IPSO and the Jewish Chronicle, September 2024 – March 2025

IPSO was deeply concerned by these events and investigated the circumstances which had led to the publication of the articles. We also considered the steps the Chronicle had taken to remedy the procedures which had enabled publication of articles that it later was unable to stand by, and what further action was required.

Between September 2024 and February 2025, IPSO’s management met the Chronicle’s senior leadership team on three occasions, including its Chief Executive, Jo Bucci; Managing Editor and Standards Officer, Keren David; and both Editors who were in post over this period, Jake Wallis Simons and Daniel Schwammenthal, who became Editor in late February 2025.

The Chronicle provided further information about the editorial processes that led to the publication of the articles and engaged with IPSO in a detailed review of the processes that were in place at that time and the lessons that had been learned as a result.

It explained that it had established that the sequence of events was influenced by unexpected staff absences that led to articles being commissioned and published which had not been through its usual verification process. Following this incident, it had identified shortcomings in its processes for vetting and overseeing content submitted by freelance contributors.

The publication detailed the action that it had taken in response. This included:

• introducing a new, strengthened procedure to verify and on-board freelancers and columnists;
• extending the Managing Editor’s role to be a Standards Officer to improve visibility and accountability for standards;
• recruiting additional newsroom staff; and
• undertaking further staff training.

At a series of meetings between October 2024 and March 2025, IPSO’s Board carefully considered the Chronicle’s response, together with its compliance record over the last five years.

The Board considered two alternative courses of action: (1) launching a formal standards investigation and appointing an external panel of experts to investigate further; or (2) direct oversight of the remedial measures that the Chronicle had now put in place to ensure that standards had been raised to the level required.

After thorough consideration, the Board concluded that a standards investigation was not appropriate at this time, for the reasons below:

• A comprehensive review of the compliance record of the Chronicle provided evidence of improved compliance and complaints handling practices;
• The Chronicle had responded decisively when concerns were raised on this occasion, acting swiftly to remove the disputed articles and publishing an apology;
• The direct engagement by IPSO had already provided a good understanding of what had taken place and why;
• The Chronicle had detailed a series of changes that it had made in response and made clear its openness to further input by IPSO on these, including training on the use of confidential sources after this was highlighted by IPSO; and
• The Chronicle’s new Editor and senior leadership staff have engaged seriously and meaningfully with IPSO to improve training and editorial standards and expressed a clear commitment to continue this in future.

The Board nevertheless resolved that IPSO should continue to monitor the procedures and processes in place at the Chronicle and that regular reports are to be provided to the Board in which any concerns will be identified.

Next steps

IPSO welcomes the assurances it has received from the Jewish Chronicle’s Editor of his commitment to high editorial standards and his desire to work closely with IPSO to maintain improvements. We will continue to engage directly with the publication’s leadership team to complete the process of addressing the issues identified following the September 2024 incident.

IPSO will deliver regular training sessions and guidance to Chronicle staff, including frontline journalists and senior editors, around the use of information from confidential sources and appropriate practices for using copy provided by freelancers.

IPSO will also continue to deliver regular training sessions to all editorial staff on compliance with the Editors’ Code of Practice.

We will now work with the Jewish Chronicle – and the new leadership team – to cement improvements in the publication’s editorial standards. We will continue to monitor standards and editorial processes at the publisher to ensure that the changes are lasting and effective.

8 April 2025