Media Under Scrutiny Following Tragic Death Of Jason Arday

Welcome to Navara Live. We are only discussing one story tonight, the tragic death of Jason Arday and what it says about Britain's media. Um, ourselves included. I'll be joined throughout by Barry Malone. Um, thank you Barry for joining me this evening. I really do appreciate it. Difficult topic today. >> Yeah. No, good to be with you. >> Um, we'll begin with, of course, the tragic news from Friday afternoon. um the professor Jason Arday had been found dead at his home and the 41-year-old academic had been at the center of a media storm for nearly three weeks and one that relentlessly rad over every aspect of his academic career and personal biography. And the organization News cord has mapped the scale of the scrutiny our day was placed under. So almost 250 articles were published about our day and with the times and Sunday Times and the Telegraph publishing over 40 each. Um the Daily Mail published just under 40 with The Independent, The Spectator, and The Guardian publishing around 20 each. Um that excludes breaking news alerts, social media posts, and radio and TV slots dedicated to the story. On Channel 4 on Friday, Jason's friend and fellow academic Hindi Andrews spoke about the impact all that coverage had. >> Um what was his frame of mind, if you don't mind me asking? >> Well, I spoke to him on Monday. We had dinner and I texted him over the week and it was very clear that he was overwhelmed. He was upset. He was depressed. He couldn't see a way out because of this avalanche of stories. 188 stories on Jason. It's it's a mob. It's it's ridiculous. It's ludicrous. And he just couldn't he didn't want to leave the house. When I saw him on Monday, he had lost lots of weight. He was clearly just clearly damaged by all this scrutiny and speculation around him >> and clearly emotionally isolated from what you've just said. Was he physically was he on his own yesterday when you spoke? >> Uh so I he's had people around him. Have we been trying to trying to support him? But I do want to stress here, this isn't just a tragedy. A man was lynched yesterday. Like when you talk about the those amount of articles and you can't just blame Cambridge, Cambridge University. This is the media. This is 188 articles. This is constant scrutiny. This is people outside of his house even today when he's died. This is unprecedented. And I want to stress this very clearly. If he was white, he would still be alive. This is the story. And and I just can't believe how bad it's how bad it's become. >> Um a lynching. What else could you call it? So you have people like Nathan Koffn, let's just say these are racist ideas who who put this idea out there that he's victim of pl we still hear this. You did it today in the same story victim that he was allegations of plagiarism. Those allegations were investigated and he was cleared. I read his PhD a year ago and said this is not plagiarism and he was cleared. That's still part that's still part of the story. And then all of this resounding pressure, media pressure, random memes on TikTok. I would have said before it was metaphorically a lynching, but like I said, he's now dead because he's black. What else do we call that but a public lynching of this man? >> Someone else who knew Jason well was Professor Sir Simon Baron Cohen, a leading expert on autism and fellow academic at Cambridge. He spoke to Radio 4 on Saturday morning. >> Now, I understand that you were in touch with him as recently as yesterday morning um hours before he died. Can you tell us what he was saying to you, how he seemed? >> Um he really wasn't coping. I mean, as has just been described, he was the uh he was being subjected to relentless scrutiny, including uh ridicule, um discrediting absolutely every detail of his life, and he wasn't coping with the uh you know, uh the the loss of his career, the loss of his reputation, and he felt he couldn't go on. Uh I want to say that he was uh an incredibly kind and gentle and caring and generous man. Um, but he's been portrayed in the media, both the traditional media and social media in the last month as a plagiarist and a liar and a fraud. At the heart of all of this was a man who'd been diagnosed in childhood with disabilities that included autism and language delay and learning differences. Uh, so he was by definition, I'm choosing my words carefully, he was a vulnerable child, a vulnerable teenager, and a vulnerable adult. So he needed and deserved safeguarding and support and reasonable adjustment every step of the way. >> Simon Baron Cohen's focus on Arday's vulnerability and his autism was not something he only vocalized after our day's passing. So over two weeks ago um and a week before Ard resigned from his post at Cambridge, Simon Baron Cohen posted this warning um on EC. So he said, "In 2014, we published the first large-scale study of suicidality in autism, subsequently widely replicated, revealing that one in four autistic people have planned or attempted suicide. That's why I'm very concerned about the impact of the media coverage on Professor Arday, who is autistic. He has been accused of plagiarism and he was cleared of any academic misconduct following a rigorous investigation by Liverpool John Moors University. And yet he continues to be systematically discredited over every detail of his life daily. We should of course always investigate plagiarism to protect academic standards. However, I cannot stand by and watch when an autistic man is on the ground and the kicking continues. This is relentless bullying of a vulnerable autistic man and raises safeguarding issues. It's time to stop. Um Baron Cohen also signed a letter drafted by the Good Law Project which referred to the allegations of plag plagiarism sorry and other academic misconduct leveled against our day as a racist smear and completely false. Um but Baron Cohen along with a number of other academics at Cambridge would later withdraw their names from that letter as more questions surfaced about Bardday's academic work as well as his backstory. Now alongside the plagiarism allegations for which our day had been cleared at that previous institution as Simon Baron Cohen said there the times reported on more damaging allegations of what they called impossible data in his work. So these included quotes from participants from other people's research, past offices own interviewees and quotes from interviews interviewees of his own which were used across different papers and ascribed to people with incompatible identity characteristics. Um it was following those allegations that Cambridge opened an investigation into our day. Um our day of course after that quickly resigned his post. Um, however, when it comes to the focus on our day in the press, it was driven less by the merits or demerits of his academic work and rather more by the doubts which were raised over inconsistencies in his backstory. So, the Guardian on the 1st of August published an article which cast significant doubt on claims Arday had made about being threatened with a knife on campus and having a pig's head sent to him in the post. Um, in the Atlantic, serious discrepancies were found between his book proposal and his finished book. These included an account in his proposal of being struck by a car and spending several months in a coma with lockedin syndrome. In the finished book, he said he spent these years studying for his GCSEs. All this is to say that our day was not faultless. My personal opinion is that much of this reporting was legitimate and the personal targeting of journalists for legitimate and accurate reporting is unpleasant and fair. I've seen this all over social media this weekend. I think it's very unpleasant. I'm seeing sort of young reporters targeted as if, you know, they've done a terrible job when I think actually lots of this was legitimate. However, I think it's undeniable that the press as a whole e lost its sense of perspective, um, which I think happened to many or actively relished in kicking a vulnerable man while he was down. Now, after his death, images like this of the over 40 articles published about our day on the Telegraph alone went viral online. Um, this was not proportionate and to continue tearing down a man for over a week after he resigned served no clear public interest. It was cruel. So why did this story get quite so much prominence to the extent it destroyed our day? Well, the press has always loved a story about a person who flies too close to the sun and then they revel in their downfall. Right? It would also not be the first time such a gleeful pylon has led to a tragic end. We just need to look at the events surrounding the death of Caroline Flack. But Arda's race also undoubtedly played a role. When Cambridge first appointed Arday to the prestigious professorial chair, they celebrated him as their youngest black professor in their history. Um, this was at a time when the university had been under pressure for the lack of black academics on its faculty. Um, and this meant those on the right who oppose attempts to increase representation in elite institutions immediately put a target on our day's back. It's no coincidence that this current round of scrutiny placed on our day was started by a self-professed race realist Nathan Coffnes who explicitly argues that black people are less intelligent than white people. And even if they usually steer clear of race science, our mainstream press is certainly not averse to joining in a racist pylon. Um that's a significant reason why 249 articles were written about an academic who while prominent for sociologist was hardly a national figure. Even here though, the story has added complexity because it could have been broken in another way. Last year, the Times Higher Education Supplement was planning a thorough review into questions surrounding our day's work. But they spiked the piece after receiving a threatening letter from the expensive law firm Carter Ruck and after the papers journalist Jack Grove, who profess whose professionalism um no one has disputed, was reported by Arday to the police. Um we also know it wasn't just white supremacists who had concerns about the nature of Ard's appointment the day after his resignation. A number of academics including prominent academics of color criticized Cambridge for hiring our day in the first place. Professor of postcolonial studies Priya Gopal told the paper it was quote highly unusual to say the least to appoint such an early career academic to a very senior post. Again though none of this is to say the media doesn't have serious questions to answer whether or not a story is true and whether or not there is a public interest in initial reporting. The human tendency to join in a pylon can overcome even otherwise compassionate considerate people and that's only made worse once a pursuit for clicks either to gain money status or for political point scoring enters the equation. Belro Addi who is the MP for the Rday's constituency spoke to Newsight on Friday night. >> I have to ask uh the media you know and even the BBC I are you are you going to reflect on yourselves? When is this all going to stop? Because I'm seeing right now even in this death, even in the way that we've been contacted to come on shows, even the questions uh that we are being asked that no one's reflecting and no one's changing and people even attempting to justify, oh uh well, you know, maybe it was okay to level that amount of scrutiny at him before, but after he resigned, we shouldn't. All of it was wrong. The way in which he was treated right from the beginning was absolutely appalling. And that is the one thing that the media have to understand. >> Barry, I want to bring you in on this. Um, we at Navar Media of course are part of the media. We reported on Jason our day over the past four nights. Time for us or at least me to reflect on that. Um, I want to park that just for a moment because we're going to come to that in a second. Um, and first of all, I want to get your more general comments on on this tragic story, the tragic sequence of events that that led to what happened last Friday. >> Yeah, I think it's a I think it's a terrible tragedy and I think that it's very clear that it has really deeply affected a lot of people in the country. People are heartbroken, but people are also enraged because I agree with Professor Kand de Andre Andrews who was you showed the clip of on channel 4 that this that Jason um Arday was hounded to his death that there is a strong case to be made that he was in effect killed. I mean, I I I hesitate to say that, but the it's he would still be alive today. I agree. If he was white, he would still be alive today if the media hadn't engaged in this absurd feeding frenzy on something that never met the bar for the national interest at all. I mean I think we have to go right back to the beginning and we have to understand where this story came from. I think that's so important and you had spoken about it there. You know it came from a guy called Nathan uh Kovvenas who was a you know formerly at Cambridge. This is a man who is fiercely racist. This is a man who's in effective genicist. This is a man who's a racial determinist. He's a crank. He's a hatemonger. He's made it clear that it's his mission to effectively take down black people and non-white people in an effort to prove his crank science that intelligence is uh partly dictated by race. I mean, when you look into some of the things that this man has said that if you know there were no DEI policies that quote blacks would disappear from prestigious positions. He said that if there was no DEI policies, black people would only be known for entertainment and sport. This man goes and writes a Substack post. He's clearly been trying for a long time to find that case, that case that will help him to prove his hateful theories. And he focuses in on Jason Arday, puts it on his soap stack. I think that was July 21st. If you want to see how this then made it into the mainstream media, the first story that hit the mainstream media was the Telegraph on July 24th. So that was 3 days later it was picked up by the Telegraph. Let me just tell you what the Telegraph headline was. The Telegraph headline, and this is the first mainstream story to come off the back of the Substack, was Cambridge's diversity poster boy in plagiarism row. Cambridge's diversity poster boy. To me, that indicates that that was what the coverage was going to be like. This wasn't the Telegraph looking at a Substack post and picking it up as a news piece and saying, you know, data in a in a Substack has suggested that, you know, no, this was them saying, "The diversity poster boy is in trouble." And I think that the that the coverage maintained that sort of tenor all the way through. 6 hours later, it hit the Times. Times obviously saw it in the Telegraph. they decided they would jump on it and then quickly quickly the feeding frenzy begins. And the thing that I want to say is that this wasn't ordinary news coverage. You know, you have some journalists out there who are saying, "No, no, this was, you know, uh uh this was just news coverage of of a story that was in the public interest." No, it wasn't. Even when you look at some of the stories that were purported to be news stories, they were they were uh um you know, they were they were gleeful. They were sneering. They were shot through it like very thinly veiled racism. And again, as um Professor Kate Andrew Andrew said there, some of it was also inaccurate, you know, like I think if you talk to nine out of 10 people and ask them about this story, they would probably say that Jason Arde plagiarized his PhD thesis when we know that actually he was cleared of it. But that didn't seem very important for the headline writers. that didn't seem very important for the columnists. And like I say, it was just a it was just a feeding frenzy. It was just a witch hunt. Um, look, am I saying that there should have been no stories at all that it should have been completely ignored? No. Could have been covered in the Times Higher Education supplement. Seems like a good place for it. Could be covered in Varsity, the Cambridge newspaper. That seems like a good place for it. A couple of pieces in the Telegraph that are straight and newsy, not the diversity poster boy is in trouble. fine a day inside the newspaper, not on the headlines, not in the front pages, not in breaking news, not in alerts, not in live discussions on on on on cable news. And the thing that was ignored was that the story was about race. This is my contention. It started about race and racism was shot all the way through that coverage. And I think that for journalists to be out there arguing that it was a story about academia, if it was a story about academia, it would have been a tiny little story. The fact that it was a story about race and the fact that it became a pylon is what made it such a big story. And I think ethical news journalists shouldn't have covered it in any way without censoring race after that feeding frenzy uh begun. and just to show how manipulated the media was. Because that's the other thing, the media just rides the wave. Here's the shiny thing. Here's somebody we can kick when he's down. Here's something that we can pull in the clicks with. Here's something that all our our our Instagram videos will go viral with like the Times advertising its hit pieces on Jason Are they on Twitter so that more people would see them. and where I want to talk about the little the touch paper being lit. This horrible video came out um a discussion between Kofnas who started this whole thing and David Starky and it was appalling to watch. Now this is before Jason Arde's death but I actually took the quote from it. They're grinning at each other in this video. And David Starky says, "The reason we are both grinning is that we are enjoying vengeance. Good, honest, straightforward, uncchristian vengeance. We can rejoice together." Now, that's the man who started this. He is in that conversation with David Starky. And then they're sitting there rejoicing. Why? because Kaufnness lit the touchpaper and the media just followed and now a man is dead. >> Yeah. I mean I'm I'm I suppose I'm I don't want this to become into a debate and I don't want us I don't think now is the occasion for us to debate the you know the merits or demerits of of Jason Aday's work. Um, I suppose where I disagree with you as and to not rake over hot coals like in my introduction I think I've put forward why I think that there were questions to answer in terms of backstory in terms of why this hire was made, why race was sort of inevitably going to be talked about here because of the statements that were made when he was hired and the various sort of academics at Cambridge um many of them on the left, many of them of color who who were saying that there were questions um about the appointment of our day. So I think we differ there and my issue is more that the extent of the coverage forgot that there was a human at the center of this. Um and then of course obviously there were sort of many people who were using this for their own ideological ends. That's the same with every news story. Um I don't know do you want to come back to that before we get on to Yeah, please. >> I just want I just want to come quick in quickly on the questions to be answered thing because I've seen this a lot. There were questions to be answered. you know, journalists are justifying some of the coverage on their questions um to be answered. Who who to who to who, you know, the questions that needed to be answered were for Cambridge, right? They were they were for the the department that he worked in. It was it was like like an employment matter, right? I mean, why did the these questions have to be answered in in the national newspapers when I would argue that it wasn't a story of much consequence? Again, like I did say couple of stories in the Telegraph, couple of stories in in whatever, but it was so so overblown. The questions should have been answered, questions that if there were to his employer, I don't think they needed to be answered in the national conversation. But I completely agree with you, Michael. It's it would be there's no sense in raking over the coals here because a man is dead. And you know, I think now we need to talk about why that has happened. And you know, there are people still out there debating uh the accusations, you know, after the fact. It and it's just to me it's really unsemly. Like there are actually people on social media today having arguments about how many marathons Jason Arde ran. You know, he's dead now and people are still out there arguing. And I hate to drop the fbomb here, right? I don't I don't drop the f1, but people are out there arguing about how many [ __ ] marathons he ran. Like, what the [ __ ] are we doing here? I mean, it's ridiculous. And to me that that is continuing after his death. It just even sort of proves more to me how toxic and horrible this entire thing uh uh became. But yeah, I think I agree. we we need to focus on on the aftermath and and I think a um a postmortem on on on this atrocious coverage. >> I suppose just briefly because I mean people watching will be wondering why are we even having this conversation now? This is sort of ridiculous and as I say I really don't want to get into a debate over this. I just want to say one thing and get your thoughts from it, Barry, because my concern has been that since this tragic death, there are lots of questions to answer by the media, including ourselves. But I have seen a degree of rewriting of history, I think, where people are saying that anyone who ever reported on this should be a a target for umounding essentially. Um, saying that all of this was made up. And I do think that when there is an attempt in an emotionally charged environment to rewrite history, um it's it's worth sort of just putting forward actually, hold on, this isn't as black and white as you might think it is. >> Michael, I'm not I'm not even going to I'm not even going to get into that. I, you know, I I think that again, I don't think that there's any point in raking over the ins and outs, and I'm not going to sort of tone police the reaction that anyone is is is having to this. Okay, let's let's go on to Navara coverage. So, over the weekend, we at Navar have received a fair amount of criticism of our coverage of the JSON Rday story. Now, a lot of it has been focused on some social media posts made by my colleague Aaron Bastani. Now, obviously, Aaron is not here to respond to those today. um it wouldn't be right to discuss them without him, but he will be hosting the show tomorrow alongside Banana Seca KMBBE. Um and I know they're planning to sort of talk about this and and to give their reflections then. So, we're just going to park that issue for now. Um but don't sort of take that as sort of it being completely ignored. Um now, in terms of our output as an organization, our colleague Ash Sar has published an article on how racism pushed Jason Aard to the top of the news agenda and arguing he should never have been a front page story. Um, I think it's worth looking at a fair amount of Ash's reflections, which I know she spent quite a lot of the weekend sort of writing. She's been thinking deeply about this. Um, so she said, "Where is the line drawn between investigative rigor and a media onslaught? Nobody who finds themselves the subject of interrogative reporting experiences it as a dispassionate neutral scrutiny. They're having their entire world appended, their flaws and their frailties exposed for the world to see. Fundamentally, journalism is a dynamic of predator and prey in service of the public interest. But public interest is just one consideration. There is also proportion and due prominence that need to be kept in mind. There were legitimate questions to be answered by Arday about his research and his account of his life. But it should never have been a front page story. Even if all the worst things that were said about him turned out to be true, he was not the biggest nor most pressing issue facing the UK at a time of record drought, wildfires, and a new prime minister. And she goes on to say this. Um, were it not for the combination of AR's race, the relentlessness of ideologically motivated critics, and the British media's preoccupation with what goes on inside the hallowed halls of Oxbridge, there's no way that a story about alleged plagiarism would be leading the country's news desks. Um, and then she um also contrasts the Aday story with a a recent case of much greater importance with higher stakes. She says at the same time that the Ferrari around our day was reaching fever pitch, there was another story involving serious failures by a British institution. Simon Levy, a serial sexual offender, was found guilty of murdering two women. Carmenza Valencia Valencia Trujillo in March 2025 and Cheryl Wilkins 5 months later. He was on bail for the first murder when he committed the second. Months earlier, while on bail pending the investigation for a series of sexual assaults carried out on London trains, he carried out additional attacks. The police failed, prosecutors failed, and as a result, women were assaulted and killed. To date, the Times and the Sunday Times have published 10 articles about Simon Levy. They published at least 40 about our day before he died. Some of them boosted by advertising on social media. And then she turns to our coverage and says this, four times as much coverage and commentary for a man who at no point was ever said to have posed a danger to anybody. You could say the same about me and Navara Media more generally, and you'd be right. While we only put out free pieces about our day, it was free more than we published about Levy or many other stories which materially involved higher stakes or more serious harm than alleged plagiarism and embellishment of one academic's life story. Speaking personally and not on behalf of my colleagues who will have their own thoughts, we allowed ourselves to be led by the news agenda rather than critically intervening in it. I feel ashamed about how I allocated my attention over the weeks leading up to our days deaf. I didn't participate in the circus of public opinion. But I know that my private thoughts lacked compassion and lost sort of the lost sight of the human being at the center of the storm. If, as Andy Burnham says, Jason Arde's death is a moment for reflection, I can't say I'm wholly comfortable with what I found in the mirror, a journalist who's just as capable of callousness as anybody else. Um, I suppose I should sort of add, I mean, my personal reflections here is I I looked over the two Navara Live pieces um which we put out. Well, one of them we put out as a segment, one of them was part of a longer show. Um, and I have to say, watching them back, I I do think that we were generally fair. I think the first piece um followed um sort of the Guardian reporting about some of the backstory falling apart, especially when it came to sort of hate crimes essentially, which I I do think that is in the public interest. Um it was also following the people who who signed the letter saying that this was all a smear and there was nothing to answer for. The second time we reported on it, it was um taking a lead from the Cambridge scholars who had said that this was um a problem for Cambridge and there need to be an investigation into how this happened. I think both of those were covered reasonably. I don't think we dwelled or were gleeful in this man's career being ruined. The one thing I would say about our coverage is the thumbnail which sort of I've looked back on with regret which had a picture of Jason Arde and Cambridge in the background and said this was a disaster. Um the title was clear the disaster was the racism which was unleashed by Cambridge University. That's the story we were leading from but I think that juxosition is obviously hurtful. Um the second on a more personal level obviously once you know that someone has taken their own life then there is no amount of sort of public interest or um journalistic curiosity which would override just the human instinct of if this could have had any role in making this man feel worse than he already did we should have just done a different story right so that's sort of what I will take from this is especially as a you know I suppose the most difficult thing is I I you know I don't know anything I don't know Jason Aday um I think he was of the left and so while the Guardian and Navar Media and those definitely weren't the most vicious I think we had much more responsible journalism than anyone else it's quite possible that it meant more um because they're the kind of outlets that he would have watched now again the other thing I want to be clear about is so there was an instinct from some people to say okay this is a bad attack so we have to defend him. We have to ignore what's happened. Um or we have to sort of just say he's got no questions to answer. This was this was perfect. Just defend him. Defend defend defend. Close ranks. Now, that was sort of what happened with the good law project letter. And I don't think that was a particularly effective tactic either because there was a line which was adopted which couldn't be held. So, I suppose what I take away from this really is there are people behind stories. um Navara media while not really shaping the national conversation will have particular influence or particular meaning for certain parts of the population and if someone is already suffering then maybe just leave it. I I think that's sort of the position I've come to. Um Barry, I I know you're you're not part of our editorial decision-m processes. You you're a contributor to Navar. You don't work for Navar. You're not in our editorial workshops or anything like that. Um I I suppose I want to get your perspective. um as a journalist sort of what you have engaged with over the past two weeks and also your perspective on Navar Media's coverage. >> Yeah, I mean I think I I think it's it's good that uh you guys are reflecting on your coverage. I think that's important especially as you've pointed out that I think that there are people who expect Novara to be different um to the mainstream and maybe were a little disappointed that that they didn't see that uh with this coverage and I don't work with you guys but I know that you take your editorial uh processes very seriously. You don't just rock into that studio and sit up at the desk and say, "What are we going to chew the fat on today?" You know, you think these things through. And I think that from Ash's words in the newsletter, it's clear that you will reflect on this and you are reflecting um on this. Um I personally didn't engage with the story in any way. Um, you know, people who follow me on Twitter will know that I'm terminally online and it's unusual for me not to jump into a story and and you know, and shoot my mouth off, but I just really didn't think that this was relevant. I was pretty clear from the beginning that this I did not think this was a story in the national interest and I did not think it was something that I wanted to comment on. And then the only comment I made on it was like about six days before Chasing Nard's death, I asked when would the absurd media coverage end. And you know, I'm not setting myself up as as some sort of an angel here. You know, I think that there were other journalists who felt the same. And I think that, you know, from my perspective as somebody who, you know, I've found myself moving into more of a sort of a punditry space, but I did spend almost 25 years in news journalism. And so you know for Reuters and for Alazer and so when I was working for those organizations I was very often involved in deciding whether something was in the public interest or not in the public interest and you know there there are a few examples I remember when we took a position and that position was we're not going to follow the herd right so at Reuters I remember I was a correspondent in Ethiopia at the time and a US diplomat uh was killed and the media were sort of uh jumping on this story of a diplomat being being murdered and when I looked into it I found that his killing was it seemed to be a personal issue. It was nothing to do with his work um was nothing to do with the fact that he was a diplomat. was it was a very personal sort of domestic thing had happened and I thought that this purant interest had developed in his private life and so I told Reuters I'm not comfortable writing about this and I'm and I'm just not going to because I don't think it's in the public interest. His death was nothing to do with him being a diplomat. It was nothing to do with his job and it was actually sort of a something to do with his his private life. And in that instance, my editor backed me and said, "If that's how you feel, then we won't cover it." And that was a kind of, you know, not an easy decision I think for my editor to take when he is seeing the Associated Press and AFP and everybody else cover it and Reuters has no story because I've decided to that I have a a problem with it because I don't think it's in the public interest. But he backed me on that. And then I think more significantly for Novara when I was at Alazer we had like this very strong sense as I know Novara does too that we were different to the other international news channels. I mean that was like a key part of Alazer and I think remains a key part of Alazer is that belief that we're different and that belief that that we had to do something different because Alazer was partly set up as a response to disqu in for desper want of a better term the global south to how all of the international news organizations had a very western centric framing on the world and so I have like two sort of distinct things I remember um and and and actually these are lighter ones, but I think that they they both illustrate a desire not to follow the herd, right? So, one was I remember when Sky News, BBC, and CNN were obsessed with the impending birth of uh Prince George. And in the Alazer studio, we would have like four boxes with like CNN, Alazer, Sky News, BBC or whatever, all the the the rolling international news channels where we could see them all together. And I remember this one day um where it was BBC live outside the hospital, Sky News live outside the hospital, CNN live outside the hospital, and the Alazer strap said Philippines in ruins because I think there'd been an earthquake. And then I also remember a directive coming down from the director of news that we were not allowed to cover the Oscar Pistorius trial in South Africa. And it was so odd that every day all of the other big international news channels were live on this story and we were talking about completely other things, completely different things. And there is a there has to be a a kind of a a mission to do like a belief in what you are editorially to do that because of course what happens is that you know on YouTube or on social media or or viewers for your your channel everybody is following the Oscar Ptoria story right so you know if people post that on YouTube they get hundreds hundreds of thousands of views and then Alazer puts up a video saying you know there was an earthquake in the Philippines or whatever and and gets you know, 3,000 views. And so that's where sort of a fear comes from that we've got to like surf that wave. We've got to go with the conversation that everybody else is having. So I I do think that at Novara you had other options and I think that one of the options was not to cover at all. I think that that option was there. And when you look at um your you know the two segments that Novara did which again you know were were were much more respectful and and and factbased than the hysterical coverage that we were seeing elsewhere. I think maybe an issue I would have is that I think that Novara somehow almost accepted the framing. So the framing was let's dig into his academic credentials. And I think while you did talk about um um Nathan Kofnes and etc. I think the brunt of some of the conversations was digging into whether he could had committed plagiarism or not or what the veracity of his backstory was. And I think that that was something that you could see anywhere else. Right. And so if Novara has a different mission, I think Novara maybe shouldn't have done what you could see everywhere else and accepted that framing. And I remember a couple of weeks ago I was on with you and we were talking about um the small boats and I remember that when we started the conversation before we actually got into the meat of the conversation I said to you that I resent that this is leading the agenda today because again I thought that we were allowing as a you know the media was allowing reform to set the agenda that day and I feel like for the last 2 and 1/2 weeks we've allowed bad faith racist actors and right-wing media IA to frame a conversation and then the media has gone along with it. So to Ash's point in the newsletter, I mean Novara could have said, you know what, this is uh not reaching the bar for public interest. People can see it everywhere else. So you know what? We're going to talk to our audience about Simon Levi. You know, as Ash said, I think you could do that. You could say, we're going to bring our audience something different that they can't see anywhere else. Me personally, I think if I was had been involved last week, I pro with you guys, I probably would have argued to just not cover it, which is is also why I I was kind of personally um ignoring it. And again, just and don't take this the wrong way, but I I do think that, you know, again, because you guys are so reflective, and I do want people to understand that. I do want people to understand that that you guys care. you know that you guys like you really give a [ __ ] about what you're covering and how you're covering it and I think that's so important and I'm proud of my association with you and I I I you know I really like coming on the show and I know that about you and I want people to know that about you so I know that you will reflect and my sort of thinking is that if you are going to reflect it could could actually be a good time to think about when you dissect how Novara covered this story what is Novara for right in in in August 2026. What is Novara for? What is Novara's mission? What is it that continues to make Novara different? Because, you know, I know that one of the big things that you guys say is um so like elevating critical perspectives that you won't see anywhere else. So, my arguments to you guys with love would be that I think that you did something that could have been seen everywhere else. And so h if it was me, I I I I wouldn't have touched it. Or or there was maybe an option to cover it in a sort of through an anti- an anti-racist lens. But but again, I think the option that I would have taken would have been not to cover it. That's that's my take on on on on your coverage. >> Yeah. I I'm going to just briefly respond again because you know it's not a time for a debate but um you know if I think we shouldn't have covered it the reason I say I think it's for a personal level like I I think it's for having compassion for the person who the story is being written about. I know there are other people I think Ash sort of suggested this in her article as well who's saying that why do we cover what everyone else covers and a thought I have about that which I have quite sort of sincerely actually is that if people if if people who watch Navara also watched all the other media outlets and we could just be the organization that only highlights stories which look good for the left and which look bad for the right um and only highlight them all through that lens um then that would be fine because they'd come to Navara for this they'd go to the BBC BC for that, they'd go to a different outlet for that. But I know that lots of people who watch Navar Media, you know, only watch Navar Media. That's that's the case with lots of these different outlets. And so I think if you see if if if one sees your role at an outlet as to sort of be the voice speaking to your audience with your sort of ideological perspective that's one of the things that is leading to sort of a dangerous polarization of society which is why I like to include stories that make the right look bad and also stories where some of the things that the left have believed in look like they might be being undermined to some degree. Right? Because I think if you say we're only going to show things from this left-wing perspective, then you're also doing a disservice to people that get all of your news from from Nvar Media and also you you're sort of contributing to a societ where everyone is sort of in their little silo just watching the people that agree with them. Obviously, my main reflection is that there is a person here and if they were to have watched, you know, our our segments, even if I think they were fair from a journalistic level, from a human level, I would have just not done them. Um, I'll give you the final talk here and then we're going to go to some footage. >> Yeah. No, just to be clear, Michael, I'm not arguing that you should be an echo chamber uh at all. But I I do strongly believe and as somebody who who, you know, watched and and very much valued Novara before I had an association with you. Um, I'm not arguing that you become an echo chamber, but I do think that, you know, you should you should be different and and and and of course you have been and I think that there was an option to be uh to be um to be different here and and I think it's you you know you talking about how there was a person at the center of this is absolutely right to um to end this conversation and that was clearly forgotten by many many people in the media and by the way they were warned. you know, you you showed that tweet um um earlier um in which people were warned that he wasn't in a good place. Uh News Cord whose um statistics on the coverage you quoted earlier are today saying that they have it from a source that the Guardian was warned about safeguarding concerns and continued um to cover it. And you know that is probably the most egregious crime here is that he was hounded and continued to be hounded even when people had realized that his life uh was in danger and it points to a profoundly damaged media in this country and I think that that is something that we really need to grapple with. Let's um I think we can go to footage because there there's currently a vigil being held for Jason Arde Day at Trafalga Square in London organized by Stand Up to Racism and approved by the um by Arday's family. Um it's our understanding that friends and supporters have been asked not to do any media today um out of respect. So we're going to just cross to a few moments of that vigil for Professor Arday. He has had a vicious campaign, a bitter campaign by anonymous people, by other professors who just didn't believe that a black man should be a Cambridge professor. Amongst those, one of the leading people campaigning against him was a prophetical Nathan Cathnos. >> He calls himself a race realist. >> He was dismissed by Emanuel College because of his racism. and he insisted he campaigned over three years against >> evil. >> He claimed that Jason was not smart enough to be a Cambridge professor. He claimed that race is linked to intelligence and that without diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, there would be no black academics at top universities. We created a university. He is well, he is well known for saying that. But stop and think how many people at Cambridge and other top universities think exactly the same. >> In recent weeks, the attacks on Professor Jason Aday reached a climax and he felt he had no choice but to resign. And he must have felt that if he resigned, the attacks on him would stop. >> But in fact, they got even worse. >> Yes. >> From his resignation to his suicide last week was just three weeks. But the newspapers printed 249 articles about him. >> This was a vicious campaign. But it wasn't just a campaign against the professor. >> It was a campaign against all of us. >> All of us. And that is why it is so important and to come together and fight for justice for Professor Jason Aette. >> Yes. Thank you very much. >> That was Diane Abbott um speaking at the the vigil today. So that was live footage. So, I imagine there'll be um lots more speeches there as well. And we'll end tonight's show with some words from Jason Arde Day himself and ones that perhaps we could all do to remember. >> If you could change the world in any way, how would you change it? >> I would take a thread and a needle and I'd interweave love into our society. That's what I would do. I I think the absence of love in our society is absolutely palpable. I feel like the empathy we have for one another, the tolerance that we have for it's completely eroded, you know, and there is so much anger in society. There's so much anger in society and I often think what would one replace that with because also that anger has become inflicted. You know, we're not we're not kind of driven towards one goal. We're kind of turning on one another. And so for me, the thing that I would do if I could change the world, I would have the world and I'd have it spinning on this axis of love. That's what I'd have. Um because we've lost as a society, in my humble opinion, I think we've lost our way. And I think the last 15 years or the last 13 years for sure, particularly in British society, has been a huge enabler of that. You know, and I and I think the essence of love might seem like a very underrated thing or a very melancholic thing, but it's really important because if I said to you, provide me examples of where you see that in our daily society. You know, if I turn on the news, apart from the kind of fun item that comes on at the end, at the moment, there's so much kind of pulling us apart and very rarely do I hear people talk about what the things we could do to bring one another together. So those are words um from from Jason Aard speaking to Christian Guru Murphy on channel 4 on his podcast which I suppose tragically just sound um even more meaningful now. Um Barry, thank you so much for for joining me tonight. Really really do appreciate you coming on for this show. >> Thanks Michael. >> Um before we go, we should say if you've been affected by anything in this report, you can call Samaritans free anytime on 116123. Um I know these events um over the past weekend have been very difficult for for many people to watch. Um so remember there is always someone to talk to. Um for now you've been watching Navara Media. Good night.