More than 50 MPs and peers call for press regulator to investigate Jason Arday media coverage

More than 50 cross-party MPs and peers have written a letter to the Independent Press Standards Organisation, calling for the regulator to “fully investigate” the media’s coverage of Jason Arday leading up to his tragic death.

The former University of Cambridge professor, who was found dead last Friday, faced relentless press coverage over plagiarism accusations in the lead-up to his death.

The media has faced mounting criticism for writing 249 articles about Arday in the 22 days before his death, 188 of which were published after he resigned as a professor.

In a letter to IPSO Chief Executive Charlotte Dewar, coordinated by Labour MP Afzal Khan, MPs and peers raised concerns that the media’s reporting had been disproportionate.

The letter stated that reporting covered “aspects of his [Arday’s] life reaching far beyond what can be reasonably perceived as conducive to the public interest in relation to his alleged plagiarism”. 

The letter added that the story went beyond the allegations of plagiarism, “and became one that critiqued him because he was Black”. 

“It is not unreasonable to suggest that the colour of Prof Arday’s skin was a contributing factor in garnering the level of media scrutiny he faced following the allegations against him,” the letter also said. 

The letter notes that the media “continued to hound” Arday following his resignation, ignoring prior warnings that he faced a high risk of suicide due to being autistic and facing “repeated vitriol”.

It also points to how white professors at the University of Cambridge who have faced accusations have not received the same level of attention.

For example, the letter states that Simon Goldhill, a former professor who faced allegations of sexual assault which were upheld in April 2026, only resigned in June and didn’t face the same media scrutiny.

Peter Hutchinson, who received 10 accusations of sexual harassment, which were upheld, was reinstated to his post less than two years after being “permanently removed”. 

William O’Reilly, a white Cambridge professor who was found guilty of plagiarising his professor, kept his job, and only a small number of articles were written about his academic misconduct.

The letter calls on IPSO to “fully investigate the media response to the accusations against Prof Arday for the period leading up to his death, and decide whether the response was proportionate to the accusations against him”. 

The letter adds that IPSO owes it to Arday’s family and people nationwide who have been “devastated” by his death to say whether it believes the media coverage was “proportional, justified, and motivated by any reason other than the accusations of plagiarism levelled against him”.

Nathan Cofnas, a self-styled ‘race realist’ who promotes eugenicist ideas and was sacked from his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge over his views on race, led the accusations against Arday.

He claimed he ran Arday’s PhD through plagiarism detection software, and found that “many passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original source”.

Liverpool John Moore University, where Arday completed his PhD, said it had looked into the allegations and concluded he had not plagiarised.

Among the dozens of MPs and peers who signed the letter, were Labour MPs Kate Osborne, Nadia Whittome, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Clive Lewis, Richard Burgon, Tulip Siddiq, Kerry McCarthy, Paula Barker, and Tan Dhesi.

Jeremy Corbyn MP also signed the letter, as did Green MPs Carla Denyer, Sian Berry and Hannah Spencer, Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville-Roberts, and Lib Dem MP Manuella Perteghella. 

In a post on X, Clive Lewis shared the letter, and wrote: “Jason Arday is dead at 41 after weeks of brutal, relentless public scrutiny and years of abuse.”

The Labour MP for Norwich South added: “Whatever anyone thinks about the allegations against him, there now has to be a serious, independent examination of how this was handled, by institutions and by the media. Accountability cannot mean turning a human being into public sport.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward