UK regulator admits daily peddling anti-Iran falsehood, fails to take action

The UK-based pro-Israel outlet Jewish Chronicle has been found guilty of breaching journalistic standards over its false claim that Iran is bent on wiping all Jewish people off the earth.

The Jewish Chronicle, the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper, claimed in a November 2022 opinion article over the FIFA World Cup in Qatar that Iran “has repeatedly vowed to wipe… Jews off the face of the Earth”.

A ruling by the Independent Press Standards Organization, which is the regulator of the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK, said the outlet did wrong by raising such a “significant” claim that “easily needed verification.”

IPSO ordered the Jewish Chronicle in its ruling to publish a full correction in both print and online over the claim. 

Iran has been a staunch supporter of Palestine following the victory of the 1979 revolution and has helped Palestinians fight Israel’s decades-long occupation of their lands.

Iran views Israel as a fake regime that should be dismantled, proposing a referendum involving all the original inhabitants of Palestine as a solution to the conflict.

Growing calls for investigation

The Jewish Chronicle has been repeatedly found guilty of breaching the IPSO standards in recent years for publishing false and inaccurate information libeling pro-Palestine activists and entities.

There have been growing calls for the IPSO to launch an official standards investigation, its most serious potential action, into the Jewish Chronicle.

Last year, a number of people who had won libel cases against the Jewish Chronicle or had their complaints against the outlet upheld by IPSO wrote an open letter asking the IPSO to take stronger measures against Jewish Chronicle.

By its refusal to take action against The Jewish Chronicle, IPSO has proved it is a sham.

The JC breached IPSO’s Editors Code of Conduct 33 times and admitted libel 4 times in 3 years. IPSO is a sham 'regulator'
that always puts the press before ordinary people. pic.twitter.com/yNR7S2HQjS

— Jo Bird (@JoBirdJoBird) January 5, 2022

The complaint that led to the latest ruling was filed by Inayat Bunglawala, a British Muslim activist who has previously served as the media secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella group for British Muslim organizations.

Bunglawala wrote in a post on his blog that it was time for the IPSO to “acknowledge that enough is enough” and that a standards investigation into the outlet must now be opened.

“A failure to open a standards investigation can only embolden the Jewish Chronicle and encourage other bad actors in the press with the notion that they can continue to publish blatantly false information while only risking a mild slap on the wrist from IPSO. A failure to open a standards investigation would also lessen public confidence and trust in both IPSO and our press at a time when it is already dangerously low,” he said.

The IPSO has so far resisted such calls, and has instead held a training program for Jewish Chronicle staff. 

On Wednesday, the IPSO published the results of an external review into its work, which concluded that it’s unlikely that IPSO conduct an investigation into the outlet, since the body has succeeded in “improving the publication’s standards through guidance and training.”

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