:Nick Cohen

{{Infobox person

| name = Nick Cohen

| image = Nick Cohen at the Royal Courts of Justice.jpg

| alt = Nick Cohen

| caption = Cohen in 2010

| other_names =

| occupation = Journalist

| birth_name = Nicholas Cohen

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1961}}

| birth_place = Stockport, Cheshire, England

| spouse =

| children = 1

}}

Nicholas Cohen (born 1961) is a British journalist, author and political commentator. He was a columnist for The Observer, and is one for The Spectator. Following accusations of sexual harassment,{{cite news |first=Lucy |last=Siegle |authorlink=Lucy Siegle |date=4 August 2022 |url=https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/lucy-siegle-nick-cohen-guardian-complaint/ |title=If The Guardian can behave like this, how much impact has #MeToo really had? |newspaper=The New European}}{{Cite news |last=Bradley |first=Jane |date=30 May 2023 |title=A British Reporter Had a Big #MeToo Scoop. Her Editor Killed It |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.ekathimerini.com/nytimes/1212221/a-british-reporter-had-a-big-metoo-scoop-her-editor-killed-it|access-date=3 June 2023}} he left The Observer in 2022 and began publishing an online newsletter.

Personal life

Cohen was born in Stockport, and raised in Manchester.Nick Cohen Waiting for the Etonians, p. 23. His father was Jewish. He was educated at Altrincham Grammar School for Boys and Hertford College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, politics and economics (PPE).

Cohen lives in Islington with his wife and their son."Law without Order", New Statesman 2004, 'Waiting for the Etonians' p. 99. He is an atheist but says he is becoming "more Jewish".Nick Cohen (12 February 2009). [https://www.thejc.com/hatred-is-turning-me-into-a-jew-1.7584 "Hatred is turning me into a Jew"]. The Jewish Chronicle. London.

Career

Cohen began his career at the Sutton Coldfield News, before moving to the Birmingham Post, later becoming a contributor to The Independent and The Observer in 1996.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

Cohen was a columnist for The Observer and a regular contributor to The Spectator. He has also written for Time, the Independent on Sunday, the London Review of Books, the London Evening Standard, the New Statesman and The New European.{{citation needed|date=September 2024}}

In August 2022, Press Gazette reported that Cohen's regular Observer column had been "paused", pending an investigation by the newspaper's publisher, Guardian News and Media (GNM). The Gazette also reported that allegations against Cohen had been made public by the barrister Jolyon Maugham, and that a direct complaint had been made by the journalist Lucy Siegle, which she accused GNM of mishandling.Dominic Ponsford and Charlotte Tobit (2 August 2022). [https://pressgazette.co.uk/nick-cohens-observer-column-on-pause-whilst-he-co-operates-with-investigation/ "Nick Cohen's Observer column on pause whilst he co-operates with investigation"]. Press Gazette. Writing in The New European, Siegle detailed her alleged sexual harassment by Cohen in the Observer offices some years before, along with her experience of making a complaint in 2018, stating that GNM executives failed to offer a formal investigation.

Cohen's last column for The Observer was published in July 2022; in January 2023, he began publishing his own newsletter. That month, the Press Gazette reported that he left after "an investigation over a number of complaints about Cohen's behaviour in the office made by former female colleagues", but said he had resigned from The Observer on "health grounds".{{cite web |last1=Ponsford |first1=Dominic |title=Nick Cohen resigns from The Observer on 'health grounds' |url=https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/nationals/nick-cohen-allegations/ |website=Press Gazette |access-date=28 January 2023 |date=27 January 2023}} In May 2023, Jane Bradley reported in The New York Times that in addition to Siegle, several other women had come forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against Cohen, and that the British media had failed to cover the story.{{cite news |last=France |first=Anthony |date=1 June 2023 |title=Guardian bosses under fire over sexual harassment claims against Nick Cohen |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/guardian-media-group-investigate-nick-cohen-sexual-harassment-complaints-b1084988.html |access-date=2 June 2023 |website=Evening Standard |language=en}}{{cite news |title=Nick Cohen, Phillip Schofield and British media's own #MeToo reckoning |url=https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/media/961072/nick-cohen-philip-schofield-and-british-medias-own-metoo-reckoning |last=Evans |first=Rebekah |date=2 June 2023 |access-date=2 June 2023 |website=The Week UK |language=en}} Furthermore, Bradley revealed that Madison Marriage of the Financial Times actually had the story earlier, but was stopped from making it public by FT editor Roula Khalaf.{{cite web |last=Lothian-McLean |first=Moya |date=1 June 2023 |title=Britain's Journalists Protect No One But Themselves |work=Novara Media |url=https://novaramedia.com/2023/06/01/britains-journalists-protect-no-one-but-themselves/ |access-date=2 June 2023}}

Views

=Domestic=

In August 2014, Cohen was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.{{cite news |url= https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/07/celebrities-open-letter-scotland-independence-full-text |title=Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |date=7 August 2014 |access-date=26 August 2014}}

In 2014, he spoke out against the UK Independence Party and its leader, Nigel Farage, in The Observer, for which he received the Commentator Award by the European Press Prize a year later.{{Cite news|last=Gilley|first=Matthew|date=13 April 2015|title=Observer's Nick Cohen among the €10,000 winners of European Press Prize|work=Press Gazette|url=https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/observers-nick-cohen-among-the-10000-winners-of-european-press-prize/|access-date=28 May 2020}}{{Cite web|title=The Cowardice of Nigel Farage|url=https://www.europeanpressprize.com/article/the-cowardice-of-nigel-farage/|website=European Press Prize|access-date=2020-05-28}}

=Foreign policy=

The Independent wrote that Cohen "one of a number of prominent left-leaning journalists whose support for the ousting of Saddam Hussein has led them into questioning pretty much everything that the liberal left has ever espoused ... (He) believes with passion that the one thing international leftists should stand against is totalitarianism, and (that) the left has always been at its most morally bankrupt at the times when it either simply omits to do this, or even more appallingly embraces totalitarian mindsets itself."[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/what-s-left-by-nick-cohen-434637.html What's Left, by Nick Cohen, Deborah Orr,Friday 02 February 2007 01:00 GMT, retrieved October 16, 2024]

The Isis Magazine said that Cohen "began his career as an avowed left-winger, but his support for the Iraq war set him at odds with the majority of the left wing. His ideology has, over the last decade, been defined by his opposition to what he feels to be the decline of the Western left: where before it espoused solidarity, now it is relativist and anti-internationalist."[https://isismagazine.org.uk/2015/01/theres-a-big-hole-where-the-left-should-be-an-interview-with-nick-cohen The Isis Magazine, “There’s a big hole where the left should be.”] An interview with Nick Cohen by Peter Huhne, January 8, 2015, retrieved October 16, 2024

Cohen was for many years a critic of Tony Blair's foreign policy.{{Cite web |date=2021-05-19 |title=Sincerely ducking the hard questions |first=Nick |last=Cohen |url=https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/june-2021/sincerely-ducking-the-hard-questions/ |access-date=2023-06-02 |website=The Critic Magazine |quote=Nor did Tony Blair's enemies in the 1990s — I know because I was one of them. |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |title=I Was Tony Blair's Lapdog: Interview with Nick Cohen - Black Flag {{!}} libcom.org |url=https://libcom.org/article/i-was-tony-blairs-lapdog-interview-nick-cohen-black-flag |access-date=2023-06-02 |website=libcom.org |language=en}} He began modifying his views after 2001, advocating support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq,{{cite news |first=Nick |last=Cohen |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3586318/The-Left-betrays-the-Iraqi-people-by-opposing-war.html |title=The Left betrays the Iraqi people by opposing war |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=14 January 2003 |url-access=subscription |location=London |access-date=28 September 2012}}{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/feb/16/foreignpolicy.iraq |title=The Left isn't listening |last=Cohen |first=Nick |newspaper=The Guardian |location=London |date=16 February 2003 |access-date=28 September 2012}} and becoming a critic of the Stop the War Coalition.Nick Cohen (7 April 2003). [http://www.newstatesman.com/node/145159 "Strange bedfellows"]. New Statesman. London. He supported the NATO-led intervention in Libya to oust former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.{{cite web |last=Cohen |first=Nick |date=13 March 2011 |title=EU support for Arab rebels is shamefully late |language=en-GB |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/13/nick-cohen-european-union-arab-rebellion |access-date=2023-05-30 |issn=0029-7712}} In 2012, he called for Western military intervention in the Syrian Civil War.{{cite web |last=Cohen |first=Nick |date=1 January 2012 |title=The west has a duty to intervene in Syria |language=en-GB |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/01/nick-cohen-intervene-in-syria |location=London |issn=0029-7712}}

In 2006, he was a leading signatory to the Euston Manifesto,[https://list.co.uk/news/39470/nick-cohen "A prominent signee of 2006’s Euston Manifesto, which advocates ‘making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not’" - Joy Richardson, Nick Cohen, Observing Hatred In All Its Forms The List, retrieved October 19, 2024]{{cite web |url= http://eustonmanifesto.org/the-euston-manifesto/ |title=The Euston Manifesto |publisher =eustonmanifesto.org |date=11 September 2001 |access-date=6 April 2012}} which proposed what it termed "a new political alignment", in which the left would take a stronger, stance in favour of military intervention and against what the signatories deemed to be anti-American attitudes.

Works

He has written five books: Cruel Britannia: Reports on the Sinister and the Preposterous (1999), a collection of his journalism; Pretty Straight Guys (2003), a highly critical account of the New Labour project; What's Left? (2007), a critique of the contemporary liberal left, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize;[http://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/book-title/whats-left-how-the-left-lost-its-way/ "2008 Book Prize Short List", The Orwell Prize] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160923101543/http://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/book-title/whats-left-how-the-left-lost-its-way/ |date=23 September 2016 }}. Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England (2009); and You Can't Read this Book (2012), which deals with censorship.{{cite news |first=Hanif |last=Kureishi |authorlink=Hanif Kureishi |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/you-cant-read-this-book-censorship-in-an-age-of-freedom-by-nick-cohen-6295196.html# |title=You Can't Read This Book: Censorship In An Age Of Freedom, By Nick Cohen |newspaper=The Independent |date=27 January 2012 |accessdate=22 September 2024}}

Cohen, Nick (2000). Cruel Britannia: Reports on the Sinister and the Preposterous. Verso Books. {{ISBN|1-85984-288-7}}
Cohen, Nick (2003). Pretty Straight Guys. Faber and Faber: paperback edition. {{ISBN|0-571-22004-5}}
Cohen, Nick (2007). What's Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way. Fourth Estate. {{ISBN|0-00-722969-0}}
Cohen, Nick (2009). Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England. Fourth Estate. {{ISBN|0-00-730892-2}}
Cohen, Nick (2012). You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom. Fourth Estate. {{ISBN|978-0007308903}}