Never apologise, never explain. This was the advice given to me as a cub reporter on the Scotsman, four decades ago. I won’t name the editor responsible, but his words resonated in the wake of the scandal enveloping Jake Wallis Simons, editor of the Jewish Chronicle.
Wallis Simons published a series of sensational scoops about Israeli intelligence on Yahya Sinwar, the fugitive Hamas leader. Now he claims he was deceived by a freelance reporter, Elon Perry, a former member of the Israel Defense Forces.
Perry’s real name turns out to be Eli Yifrah. Contrary to his claims, Israel’s Channel 13 reported he never served as a commando in the famed 1976 Entebbe raid to free around 100 hostages taken captive on a commercial flight by Palestinian and German hijackers, nor is he a professor at Tel Aviv University.
Wallis Simons knows something about creative writing, having published four novels and earned a PhD in the subject at the University of East Anglia in 2009. He removed the dodgy articles from the JC’s website after the IDF denounced them as “wild fabrication”. Though Wallis Simons apologised to readers, he offered no explanation for how the deception occurred. Just an assurance that standards will be tightened. This will not do.
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Mistakes happen in newsrooms. Some are unintentional (a misspelled name, a wrong date); some are capital offences (contempt of court, plagiarism); some fall somewhere in between.
An editor’s job is to have procedures in place to stop the errors at inception. My rule at the Financial Times was two independent sources for news stories, and at least another two pairs of eyes in the “revise” or editing function. Sensitive stories were always subject to additional review by me and our excellent in-house lawyer.
Yifrah-Perry’s fabricated stories bear some resemblance to hardline prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talking points on the Gaza conflict, notably on the risk of an Israeli withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor and a possible Hamas breakout, smuggling Israeli hostages to Egypt en route to Iran.
Was the Jewish Chronicle a victim of a covert propaganda operation or a willing ideological instrument? Wallis Simons has been outspoken in defence of Netanyahu in his columns for the Daily Telegraph. He’s also been an outspoken critic of the BBC’s coverage of the war.
Now the proverbial boot is on the other foot. He should set the record straight.
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Almost five years after leaving, I am still asked: do I miss my old job at the FT? For the most part, the answer is a firm “No”. Managing 600 brilliant anarchists—otherwise known as journalists—was testing at the best of times.
My bouts of “editor envy” occur during big news events: the 6th January insurrection at the Capitol, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, yes, this year’s US presidential election campaign. Every four years, the punditocracy intones that the American presidential election is the most consequential in modern history. This year they may finally be right. The 2024 contest has already seen an incumbent president withdraw, two assassination attempts against an ex-president and the first sitting woman vice-president catapulted into running for the White House.
As a political contest, nothing comes close—apart from the 1968 campaign. That year, president Lyndon B Johnson announced he would not run for re-election; civil rights leader Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy, the favoured Democratic candidate, were assassinated. All against the chaotic backdrop of the Vietnam war.
Political nerds should revisit An American Melodrama, an account of the 1968 campaign written by Godfrey Hodgson, Lewis Chester and Bruce Page of the Sunday Times Insight team. The book beats American rivals by a country mile.
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Who will win in November? Only fools make predictions before Labor Day, when opinions start to settle. My time being up, I say: it’s Donald Trump’s to lose. Trump still leads Kamala Harris on the two issues that matter most: the economy and immigration. Polls underestimate support for the Republican nominee, because people don’t want to reveal their preference for a demagogue. And Americans have never elected a woman president.
And yet. The election probably comes down to 75,000 to 100,000 votes in a few swing states, notably Pennsylvania. Harris has momentum. Taylor Swift’s endorsement may fire up voter registration. Youth may boost turnout for Democrats. In short, it’s a toss-up.
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The other big distraction these past three years has been writing a biography of Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO of SoftBank, the Japanese media and technology conglomerate. Gambling Man is my tale of financial engineering in the age of dumb money and the endless reinvention of one of the world’s greatest disruptors. Son, a Korean-Japanese outsider who grew up in a slum, was the richest man in the world for three days at the height of the dotcom bubble in 2000. He lost 97 per cent of his wealth, only to bounce back.
I could say a lot more. But my editor and Media Confidential co-host Alan Rusbridger is keeping this particular freelance contributor on a tight leash. Jake Wallis Simons, take note.
