Daily Telegraph censured over Corbyn 'antisemite' smear

The new press regulator has reprimanded the Daily Telegraph for a "significantly misleading" front-page story that claimed prominent Labour MPs had accused Jeremy Corbyn of being an antisemite.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation upheld a complaint from shadow Northern Ireland secretary Ivan Lewis about a story headlined "Labour grandees round on 'antisemite' Corbyn'", The Guardian reports.

The story, which appeared on August 15, claimed Mr Lewis had attacked Corbyn's "antisemitic rhetoric", saying the party must have "zero tolerance" for such views.

Mr Lewis, MP for Bury South, lodged a complaint that the Tory-supporting newspaper had misrepresented those comments, and he had not accused Mr Corbyn, since elected Labour leader, of antisemitism.

Paper ordered to publish a correction

The Daily Telegraph said the headline should not be seen in isolation and that the article had included Mr Lewis's full comments.

It offered to publish a statement to be carried on page 2 clarifying Mr Lewis's comments, but he rejected this.

Ipso ruled that the article stated "prominently and without qualification" that Corbyn was "antisemitic", adding that "the newspaper had distorted [Lewis's] comment on this issue".

The press regulator ordered the Daily Telegraph to publish a correction online and on page 2 in the newspaper. In addition, it said that the print edition should include a "front-page reference" to the correction because that is where the original article had appeared.

In July, Ipso reprimanded the same paper for a significantly misleading story that claimed Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minister, secretly supported the election of a Conservative government.