Jake Wallis Simons is an award-winning British journalist and novelist. He is Deputy Editor for the Jewish Chronicle. 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.
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 praise. As a journalist, Jake has focussed on foreign news, reporting from all over Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. He was on the ground for major breaking stories such as the Bataclan attack in Paris, the fall of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, the collapse of Venezuela and the terror attacks in Sri Lanka. He’s written on the war in Syria, the global Sunni-Shia power struggle, the European migration crisis and the rise of the far-Right in Scandinavia. He has also conducted many foreign investigations, such as tracking down Adolph Eichmann’s Nazi sons in Argentina and exposing the ‘essay factories’ of Nairobi.
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.
Jake has also bagged 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 Cornyn’s comments that British Zionists ‘don’t understand English irony’, which dominated international headlines.
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 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.