Press regulator finds Jewish Chronicle guilty of multiple breaches of Editors’ Code
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) has found the Jewish Chronicle – the source of numerous allegations of antisemitism against the Labour Party – guilty on four counts of publishing untrue statements about a Corbyn supporter on Merseyside.
"The “significantly misleading claims” published by journalist
Lee Harpin and the Jewish Chronicle included the accusation that veteran activist Audrey White and others had ‘bullied’ local MP Louise Ellman by acting as “a group of militants who repeatedly interrupted the MP” during a constituency meeting; as well as claims that Audrey had “lied about her age” to re-join the Labour Party; was previously “expelled from the Labour Party” and a “former member of the Socialist Party.”"
"“The findings make clear that the reporting of the Jewish Chronicle and journalist
Lee Harpin fall far below the professional and ethical standards expected of journalists working today — particularly as pertains to accuracy and fact-checking (the most basic principles of reporting).”"
"The Jewish Chronicle has been
obliged to publish an adjudication summary from the IPSO committee which investigated Audrey White’s complaints. It concludes:
The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable. The Committee’s concerns have been drawn to the attention of IPSO’s Standards department."
"Audrey White, who was nominated as one of BBC Radio 4’s ‘100 most influential women of the century’ (for defending women from sexual abuse in the workplace) was targeted by the Jewish Chronicle with a litany of lies and falsehoods reported by
Lee Harpin – an ex-News of the World journalist arrested in connection with the phone-hacking scandal."
"
Harpin penned four separate articles containing incendiary and unsubstantiated claims discrediting the 68-year-old pensioner and Labour activist from Liverpool, Riverside. IPSO’s committee stated that “the publication’s (Jewish Chronicle) conduct during IPSO’s investigation was also unacceptable” and has been escalated to IPSO’s Standards Department.Evidence provided to IPSO, including a recording, exposed these reportings to be patently false and “significantly misleading.”
The Jewish Chronicle also reported that Audrey had made a “false claim” that a local Labour Councillor was under police investigation for taunting a disabled Corbyn-supporting pensioner who suffers from cancer. Evidence from Merseyside Police’s Hate Crime Unit provided to the Press Standards Investigation concluded that it was “not false to make this claim” and that the publication had provided a “serious and misleading impression of Audrey’s conduct towards Labour politicians.”