Nick Cohen | |
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 Cohen in 2010 | |
| Born | Nicholas Cohen 1961 (age 62–63) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Children | 1 |
Nicholas Cohen (born 1961) is a British journalist, author and political commentator. He was a columnist for The Observer , and is one for The Spectator . Following accusations of sexual harassment, [1] [2] he left The Observer in 2022 and began publishing on the Substack platform.
Cohen was born in Stockport, and raised in Manchester. [3] His father was Jewish. [4] He was educated at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys and Hertford College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE).
Cohen lives in Islington with his wife and their son. [5] He is an atheist but says he is becoming "more Jewish". [4]
Cohen began his career at the Sutton Coldfield News , before moving to the Birmingham Post , later becoming a contributor to The Independent and The Observer in 1996.[ citation needed ]
Cohen was a columnist for The Observer and a regular contributor to The Spectator. He has also written for Time , the Independent on Sunday , the London Review of Books , the London Evening Standard , the New Statesman and The New European .[ citation needed ]
In August 2022, Press Gazette reported that Cohen's regular Observer column had been "paused", pending an investigation by the newspaper's publisher, Guardian News and Media (GNM). The Gazette also reported that allegations against Cohen had been made public by the barrister Jolyon Maugham, and that a direct complaint had been made by the journalist Lucy Siegle, which she accused GNM of mishandling. [6] Writing in The New European, Siegle detailed her alleged sexual harassment by Cohen in the Observer offices some years before, along with her experience of making a complaint in 2018, stating that GNM executives failed to offer a formal investigation. [1]
Cohen's last column for The Observer was published in July 2022; in January 2023, he began publishing on Substack. That month, the Press Gazette reported that he left after "an investigation over a number of complaints about Cohen's behaviour in the office made by former female colleagues", but said he had resigned from The Observer on "health grounds". [7] In May 2023, Jane Bradley reported in The New York Times that in addition to Siegle, several other women had come forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against Cohen, and that the British media had failed to cover the story. [2] [8] [9] Furthermore, Bradley revealed that Madison Marriage of the Financial Times actually had the story earlier, but was stopped from making it public by FT editor Roula Khalaf. [10]
In August 2014, Cohen was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue. [11]
In 2014, he spoke out against the UK Independence Party and its leader, Nigel Farage, in The Observer, for which he received the Commentator Award by the European Press Prize a year later. [12] [13]
The Independent wrote that Cohen "one of a number of prominent left-leaning journalists whose support for the ousting of Saddam Hussein has led them into questioning pretty much everything that the liberal left has ever espoused ... (He) believes with passion that the one thing international leftists should stand against is totalitarianism, and (that) the left has always been at its most morally bankrupt at the times when it either simply omits to do this, or even more appallingly embraces totalitarian mindsets itself." [14]
The Isis Magazine said that Cohen "began his career as an avowed left-winger, but his support for the Iraq war set him at odds with the majority of the left wing. His ideology has, over the last decade, been defined by his opposition to what he feels to be the decline of the Western left: where before it espoused solidarity, now it is relativist and anti-internationalist." [15]
Cohen was for many years a critic of Tony Blair's foreign policy. [16] [17] He began modifying his views after 2001, advocating support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, [18] [19] and becoming a critic of the Stop the War Coalition. [20] He supported the NATO-led intervention in Libya to oust former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. [21] In 2012, he called for Western military intervention in the Syrian Civil War. [22]
In 2006, he was a leading signatory to the Euston Manifesto, [23] [24] which proposed what it termed "a new political alignment", in which the left would take a stronger, stance in favour of military intervention and against what the signatories deemed to be anti-American attitudes. [24]
He has written five books: Cruel Britannia: Reports on the Sinister and the Preposterous (1999), a collection of his journalism; Pretty Straight Guys (2003), a highly critical account of the New Labour project; What's Left? (2007), a critique of the contemporary liberal left, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize; [25] Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England (2009); and You Can't Read this Book (2012), which deals with censorship. [26]
The Independent is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition.
Francis James Baird Wheen is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster.
Paul Lawrence Berman is an American writer on politics and literature.
PinkNews is a UK-based online newspaper marketed to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning community (LGBTQ+) in the UK and worldwide. It was founded by Benjamin Cohen in July 2005.
Anthony Robert Julius is a British solicitor advocate known for being Diana, Princess of Wales' divorce lawyer and for representing Deborah Lipstadt. He is the deputy chairman at the law firm Mishcon de Reya and honorary solicitor to Foundation for Jewish Heritage. He is a trustee for the Institute of Jewish Studies.
The Euston Manifesto is a 2006 declaration of principles signed by a group of academics, journalists and activists based in the United Kingdom, named after the Euston Road in London where it had its meetings. The statement was a reaction to what the writers argued to be widespread violations of left-wing principles by others who were commonly associated with the Left. The manifesto states that "the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between forces on the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values".
Harry's Place is a British conservative Zionist, pro-Israel political blog concerned with monitoring pro-Palestinian activists in England, and what the website writers perceive as extremism of the right and left, as well as anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
The pro-war Left was a grouping of British left wing journalists and bloggers who supported for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, at variance with much of the rest of the British Left, which opposed it. They were centered on the Euston manifesto. which in October 2007 had 2,929 signatories. The name is derived from the pro-war group the Undertakers.
Carole Jane Cadwalladr is a British author, investigative journalist, and features writer. She is a features writer for The Observer and formerly worked at The Daily Telegraph. Cadwalladr rose to international prominence in 2018 for her role in exposing the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, for which she was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, alongside The New York Times reporters.
Guardian US is the Manhattan-based American online presence of the British print newspaper The Guardian. It launched in September 2011, led by editor-in-chief Janine Gibson, and followed the earlier Guardian America service, which was closed in 2009. Guardian US is only available online. John Mulholland was appointed in January 2018 as the editor of Guardian US. Mulholland left his post at Guardian US in 2022 and was succeeded by Betsy Reed.
The Paul Foot Award is an annual award run by Private Eye, for investigative or campaigning journalism, in memory of journalist Paul Foot, who died in 2004.
Established in 2006, The London Jewish Forum (LJF) is dedicated to the promotion of Jewish life in London. The Forum provides a platform for engagement between London Jewry and the Greater London Authority, Mayor of London, London Boroughs and MPs. It is a joint project of the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Alan Johnson is a British political theorist and activist. He is a senior research fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Previously he was Professor of Democratic Theory and Practice at Edge Hill University.
The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister papers, The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of The Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for The Guardian the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in its journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK.
Nicholas Davies is a British investigative journalist, writer, and documentary maker.
During the 2010 general election, a number of newspapers made endorsements of a political party. This is an incomplete list.
Katharine Sophie Viner is a British journalist and playwright. She became the first female editor-in-chief at The Guardian on 1 June 2015, succeeding Alan Rusbridger. Viner previously headed The Guardian's web operations in Australia and the United States, before being selected for the editor-in-chief's position.
Nicholas Watt is a journalist. In 2016, he became political editor of the BBC's Newsnight.
Jane Merrick is a British journalist who is currently the policy editor at the i newspaper. She was previously the political editor of The Independent on Sunday between 2008 and 2015. Merrick has also worked as a political correspondent for The Daily Mail and the Press Association.
Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media is a 2008 non-fiction book by Nick Davies in which he investigating malpractice on Fleet Street. The Flat Earth News is considered to be the sister book to Davies' 2014 publication, Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch.
Nor did Tony Blair's enemies in the 1990s — I know because I was one of them.
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