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Revealed: Jay Rayner left Observer over ‘antisemites on Guardian staff’

The editor, Kath Viner, ‘likes to deny it’ and ‘has not had the courage to face them down,’ he wrote in a private Facebook post

November 22, 2024 17:38
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Writer Jay Rayner will leave the Observer in a couple of months' time and join the Financial Times as restaurant critic (Image: Getty)
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The restaurant critic Jay Rayner left the Observer because “there are antisemites on the [Guardian] staff” and the editor, Kath Viner, “likes to deny it,” he wrote on a private Facebook post seen by the JC.

In the post, Rayner wrote: “I'm not sorry to be leaving Guardian newspapers. For years now being Jewish, however non-observant, and working for the company has been uncomfortable, at times excruciating.

"Viner likes to deny it but there are antisemites on the daily's staff and she has not had the courage to face them down. For years now I have made a point of sending her a back channel email each time the Guardian has published another outrage. It will be a joy to know that I'm not a part of that anymore.”

Other reasons for moving from the Observer to the FT listed in his post included “the juvenile hellscape of salami-sliced identity grievance politics that [the online opinion section] too often is” and the sale of the world's oldest Sunday newspaper to Tortoise Media.