Press Gazette has received more than 500 emailed complaints after Times Higher Education was nominated for a British Journalism Award in recognition of its reporting on the Jason Arday affair.
The Specialist Journalism shortlist was compiled by a panel of four independent judges who considered more than 50 entries for this category.
The complaints appear to have been largely written using AI and nearly all were sent via the website Newscord, which enables people to send pre-written complaints about the media or to review and send a customised version of a templated letter.
The gist of the concerns raised are that Professor Arday was cleared by Liverpool John Moores University after they investigated plagiarism in his PhD thesis, therefore the central allegation at the heart of THE’s reporting was wrong.
One of the complainants said: “Celebrating this reporting after his death, while promoting plagiarism as established despite the acknowledged clearance, is deeply insensitive.”
Jason Arday died on 14 August and his family said in a statement: “The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone.”
Separately, writing on Bluesky, investigative journalist Carol Cadwalladr said last week (in a widely shared note): “I profoundly disagree that the public interest was served by the collective & individual reporting on Arday. That aside, to ‘celebrate’ any article before the inquest has assessed the evidence around his death seems wildly premature. To say nothing of being cruel & insensitive toward the family.
“This thread is not any judgement on the merits or not of the journalist nominated. This is not about him. It’s about an industry-wide inability to hold itself to the same account it demands of all others.”
THE reporter Jack Grove began asking questions about Cambridge Professor Jason Arday’s research papers and CV in the summer of 2025, following multiple tip-offs from academics.
In September 2025, THE was planning to publish a story about allegations of plagiarism in Arday’s 2015 PhD thesis related to a 97-page report containing evidence compiled by Grove. Numerous senior academics from the UK and US were willing to confirm the report compiled provided prima facie evidence of plagiarism that required investigation.
The story did not go ahead following a letter to THE from law firm Carter Ruck sent on Arday’s behalf. In February 2026 Grove was told by a Met Police officer that a four-month investigation into him had been closed but he was asked not to contact Professor Arday again.
Grove said he stood by his reporting but said the cost of defending the story could have been “ruinously expensive” for THE. The police complaint against Grove was apparently prompted by the sending of three politely-worded emails and one right of reply letter.
On 24 July 2026 an analysis of Professor Arday’s PhD thesis for The Telegraph “identified more than 100 passages that are identical or nearly identical to a 2009 PhD thesis by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, a Brunel University student”. This analysis has not been disputed to Press Gazette’s knowledge.
This Telegraph story prompted an explosion of media coverage about Arday in the UK and around the world.
Grove was nominated by the British Journalism Awards judges for an article published on 4 August which gave the background to the affair following Arday’s decision to resign as a Cambridge professor.
Liverpool John Moores University said Arday’s PhD still stands and that they rejected the plagiarism complaints. The review they conducted remains confidential. Academic journal articles facing questions have also not been retracted.
Press Gazette’s response to the complaints over THE’s award nomination:
It is not for Press Gazette to make a final decision on the disputed allegation of plagiarism but it is often the case that investigative journalists come to differing conclusions than official reviews by institutions. There has been no IPSO complaint challenging the accuracy of Grove’s shortlisted article.
Our view is that Jack Grove raised legitimate questions, diligently and responsibly, seeking to hold the world of higher education to account, and that his nomination should stand.
Jason Arday was the subject of a huge amount of coverage in the summer of 2026 across UK and international press as well as radio, TV, X, Youtube, Substack, Reddit, Facebook, Tiktok and on various podcasts.
The British Journalism Awards judges were not considering the proportionality of this coverage, they were looking at one article written by a specialist reporter which appeared some time after the main furore and which provided a unique perspective not just on the case, but on the challenging legal climate for investigative journalism in the UK.
As Jack Grove wrote, if his publication had not been silenced with legal threats there is a chance this might have remained a fairly niche story about potential research malpractice. Our sympathies go out to Jason Arday’s family.
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