ABOUT ME

Jake Wallis Simons is an award-winning British journalist and novelist. In December 2021, he was appointed Editor of the Jewish Chronicle, where he has become known for publishing a number of world exclusives about the Mossad, including the inside story of the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and a major three-part sabotage operation in Iran.
In addition, he is a writer for the Spectator, a commentator for Sky News and a broadcaster for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service.
Previously he was Associate Global Editor for the Daily Mail Online, and a features writer for the Sunday Telegraph. He has also worked for the Times, the Guardian, CNN, the BBC and other outlets.
Although his experience spans everything from features to columns, Jake has tended to focus on foreign news. He has reported from all over Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, covering breaking news, investigations and everything in between, often in hostile environments. His exclusive reporting on stories like the Bataclan attacks in Paris, the fall of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka made headlines in multiple publications all over the world.
Jake has also published a number of political scoops. In 2015, he was the first journalist to expose Jeremy Corbyn’s links to extremists and conspiracy theorists. Among other key disclosures, in August 2018 he revealed Mr Corbyn’s comments that British Zionists ‘don’t understand English irony’, which dominated international headlines.
Jake has presented numerous radio documentaries for the BBC on a variety of subjects, including private detectives and Interpol, as well as television for BBC Breakfast. In addition, he has appeared regularly on BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent.
As a Features Writer at the Sunday Telegraph, Jake wrote Meet the Settlers, a longform multimedia story that won and was shortlisted for a range of awards, including the British Press Award. His work has appeared in international outlets including CNN, POLITICO, Newsweek, Haaretz and La Repubblica.
Jake has written four novels, including the bestselling The English German Girl, which tells the story of the Kindertransport. It won the Fiction Uncovered prize and received widespread critical acclaim.
Jake holds a First in English from St Peter’s College, Oxford and a PhD in Creative Writing from UEA, and has lectured at Oxford and elsewhere. He is a judge for the Reuters News Fixer Award, and a Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University.

PORTFOLIO

Here is a selection of my favourite exclusives.

REVEALED: How China drove a wedge between US and Israel
Top
INSIDE STORY: HOW THE US MESSED UP IRAN NEGOTIATIONS
Top
EXCLUSIVE: MOSSAD RECRUITED IRAN SCIENTISTS
Top
WORLD EXCLUSIVE: TRUTH OF IRAN NUCLEAR SCIENTIST DEATH
Top
CORBYN’S LINKS WITH HOLOCAUST DENIER REVEALED
Corbyn
Sri Lanka: First pictures of suicide bomber brothers
Nairobi: The essay factories that sell papers to UK students
NIGERIA: BOKO HARAM THREATENS EUROPE
Features
HONDURAS: ‘LOST TRIBE’ OF BRITONS ON ISOLATED ISLAND DISCOVERED
SIERRA LEONE: DOWNTON ABBEY CHARITY FAIL
Features
ARGENTINA: FATE OF EICHMANN’S NAZI SONS REVEALED
Top
ZIMBABWE: MUGABE’S SECRET MANSION
Reportage
HUNGARY: HERO WHO SAVED SOROS REVEALED
Reportage
CATALONIA: FASCIST SALUTES IN BARCELONA
Analysis
FIRST CCTV OF NOVICHOK MURDER SUSPECTS
Reportage
EXCLUSIVE: CORBYN SAYS ‘ZIONISTS’ DON’T GET ENGLISH IRONY
Top
JEWISH WOMAN NEEDS POLICE PROTECTION AT CORBYN EVENT
Corbyn
CORBYN SAYS ISRAEL DICTATES SPEECHES MADE BY MPs
Corbyn
TUNISIA ‘PEACE CONFERENCE’ WAS HAMAS HATE-FEST
Corbyn
CORBYN MEETS TERRORISTS IN PARLIAMENT
Corbyn
CORBYN ‘MISLED MPs’ OVER MEETING WITH HOLOCAUST DENIER
Corbyn
THREE-PART SERIES: ‘WAITHOOD’
Radio
30-MINUTE PROGRAMME: INSIDE INTERPOL
Radio
30-MINUTE PROGRAMME: LIFE AS A DETECTIVE
Radio
PARIS: FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
Radio
ISRAEL: FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
Radio
ST MAARTEN: FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
Radio
HOW WASHINGTON OWNS THE UK’S NUKES
Analysis
HOW INTERPOL GOT INTO BED WITH FIFA
Analysis
DRUG LEGALISATION: A QUESTION OF TIME
Analysis
LABOUR’S HAMAS CONNECTION
VENEZUELA EXPOSES THE DEPRAVITY OF FAR LEFT
Analysis
THE WORLD HAS TURNED ON THE LADY OF BURMA
Analysis
LYON: WHO POLICES INTERPOL?
Features
MACEDONIA: CROSSING WITH ILLEGAL MIGRANTS
Reportage
CARIBBEAN: TRUMP’S MANSION DESTROYED
Features
CARACAS: INTERVIEW WITH A KIDNAP GANG
WEST BANK: MEET THE SETTLERS
Features
CARIBBEAN: THE HORROR OF HURRICANES
Reportage
VENEZUELA: COLLAPSE OF A SOCIALIST UTOPIA AS FOOD RUNS OUT
ISRAEL-SYRIA BORDER: SAVING JIHADIS
Features
FINLAND: MEET THE MIGRANT HUNTERS
Reportage
PARIS: THE SILENCE AFTER THE BLOODSHED

2

Awards

6

BBC docs presented

4

Novels

1

PhD

 

TV SHOWREEL

Includes clips from BBC Breakfast, Sky News, Fox News and Daily Mail Online.

MODUS OPERANDI

WRITING

First and foremost, I’m a writer. Over the years, I’ve written reportage, features, columns, blogs and reviews for all the UK’s broadsheets.

PRESENTING

I’ve presented six docs for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service, and appeared regularly on From Our Own Correspondent. I’ve presented TV for the BBC too.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Taking my own pictures makes me a more agile journalist. I also use a GoPro camera to capture dramatic footage that complements my stories.

ONLINE

I created an award-winning digital feature at the Telegraph, and I’m a senior editor at Daily Mail Online – the biggest newspaper website in the world.

NOVELS

‘THE ENGLISH GERMAN GIRL kept me up at night… Amazing’ –Guardian

‘THE ENGLISH GERMAN GIRL is fascinating and moving’ –Monica Ali

‘JAM is a skilful road rage novel that looks at Britain through a motorway microcosm… Wallis Simons is so good at the drama of car interiors’ –Telegraph

‘Jake Wallis Simons will surely prove a name to remember’ –Beryl Bainbridge

JAM
A contemporary novel set entirely in a traffic jam on the M25, 2014
THE ENGLISH GERMAN GIRL
Bestselling WWII novel, 2011
THE PURE
A thriller about Mossad and the Iranian nuclear programme, 2012

Contact

For enquiries concerning my novels, please contact my agent, Andrew Gordon at David Higham Associates. For anything else, please use the contact form below.

Name
Email
Message

Message sent.
Error! Please validate your fields.
All rights reserved. Background picture by Gustavo Valiente, Barcelona 2017. JWS portrait by Oren Ziv, Ramallah 2017.