When the subject of massive media attention takes their own life, should journalists take the blame? On Friday, Jason Arday apparently died by suicide. In 2023, he gained worldwide recognition as the youngest black professor to be appointed in Cambridge’s history, having overcome, by his account, nonverbal autism as a child. Earlier this month, Arday resigned after a plagiarism scandal engulfed his career, leading to widespread coverage in both the British and international press. And according to many on social media, that reporting was directly responsible for his death.
One Instagram account named 26 journalists and columnists who had contributed to the “insanely revolting” scrutiny of Arday and to “collectively making that man feel like there is no place for him on earth.” The accompanying post requested “any information on these people, personal or professional.” There was a clear intimation of retribution, but for what? These journalists had been doing their jobs: reporting or commenting on an active story about a senior figure at an elite university who had reportedly plagiarized work and fabricated elements of his life story.
By Arday’s own account, he experienced a lot of bad luck in his life. He had tumors (some in his brain, according to his memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, which I reviewed for The Times of London, and one in his testicle, according to the proposal for that book). He was randomly beaten up by four youths, leaving him with epilepsy (I could find no contemporary reports to corroborate this). He was hit by a car, and comatose for months (another story that was in the proposal but not the final text).
Unpicking the truth, or otherwise, of these claims has become a national sport over the last four weeks. Arday’s biggest piece of bad luck, though, is unquestionable. It was a gigantic misfortune for the questions about his life and career to come to prominence in the summer, when Parliament is closed in the UK and the news agenda is a vacuum. The Substack post by Nathan Cofnas that initiated Arday’s fall was published on July 21—that’s one day after a new prime minister arrived in Westminster, and two days after the World Cup final. As a country, we were desperate for something to talk about.
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