Jonathan Freedland

In November 2019, Freedland apologised for making a "very bad error" in falsely reporting that a shortlisted Labour Prospective parliamentary candidate had been fined for making antisemitic remarks on Facebook. He ascribed the confusing of two lawyers with the same name on a "previously reliable Labour source" whose information he had "passed on too hastily".

Freedland has accused the Labour Party in the UK of being in denial on the issue of antisemitism. He has urged the left to treat Jews "the same way you’d treat any other minority". He has also commented on the perceived antisemitic expressions of Palestinians with whom Corbyn has associated and expressed the view that many of the Labour Party's new members were hostile to Jews. Freedland has attracted some criticism for his views.

The book was followed by another Sam Bourne title, The Last Testament (2007), set against the backdrop of the Middle East peace process. It draws on the author's experiences in that region as a reporter for over twenty years, and a Guardian newspaper sponsored dialogue which was influential in the 2003 Geneva Accords. The central character finds herself involved in a mix of the modern political situation and ancient revelations. The Final Reckoning (2008), was based on the true story of the Avengers: a group of Holocaust survivors who sought revenge against their Nazi persecutors, and just missed the peak of The Sunday Times best-seller list. Just before The Chosen One (2010), the fourth thriller by Sam Bourne was published in the UK, The Bookseller reported in April 2010 that HarperCollins had signed Freedland for three more Bourne books. HarperCollins published "Pantheon" in July 2012. Freedland's sixth novel, The 3rd Woman, was published by HarperCollins in 2015. His sixth Bourne novel, To Kill a President, was published by HarperCollins on 4 July 2017. The seventh novel under the Sam Bourne pseudonym, To Kill the Truth, was published in February 2019.

Freedland was executive editor of the opinion section of The Guardian from May 2014 till early 2016 and continues to write a Saturday column for it.

A leading liberal Zionist in the UK, he wrote in 2012 that he uses the word Zionism infrequently, as the word has been misunderstood and has become defined as right-wing. On the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, he believes that military action perpetuates conflict and has called for negotiations to end the cycles of violence. He defends Israel's right to exist despite the disposession of the Palestinians, but hopes that Israel will recognise the 'high price' paid by Palestinians.

The Righteous Men (2006), is a religious thriller published under the Bourne nom de plume. It is about a news reporter whose life is disrupted when his wife is kidnapped while he is reporting a story of a militia man found dead. As more murders of 'righteous men' happen across the globe, Will soon finds himself in the middle of a plot to bring about nothing less than Judgement Day.

Jacob's Gift (2005) is a memoir recounting the lives of three generations of his own Jewish family as well as exploring wider questions of identity and belonging. In 2008, he broadcast a two-part series for BBC Radio 4 – British Jews and the Dream of Zion – as well as two TV documentaries for BBC Four: How to be a Good President and President Hollywood.

Between 2002 and 2004, Freedland was an occasional columnist for the Daily Mirror and from 2005 to 2007 he wrote a weekly column for the London Evening Standard. He writes a monthly column for The Jewish Chronicle. He has also been published in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Newsweek and The New Republic.

Freedland was named 'Columnist of the Year' in the 2002 What the Papers Say awards and in 2008 was awarded the David Watt Prize for Journalism, in recognition of his essay "Bush's Amazing Achievement", published in The New York Review of Books. Nominated on seven occasions, Freedland was awarded a special Orwell Prize in May 2014 for his journalism. In 2016, he won the "Commentariat of the Year" prize at the Comment Awards.

Bring Home the Revolution: The case for a British Republic (1998), Freedland's first book, argued that Britain should reclaim the revolutionary ideals it exported to America in the 18th century, and undergo a constitutional and cultural overhaul. The book won a W. Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction and was later adapted into a two-part series for BBC Television.

The younger Freedland began his Fleet Street career at the short-lived Sunday Correspondent. In 1990 he joined the BBC as a news reporter across radio and television, including for The World at One and Today on Radio 4. In 1992, he was awarded the Laurence Stern fellowship on The Washington Post, serving as a staff writer on national news. He was Washington Correspondent for The Guardian from 1993 until 1997, when he returned to London as an editorial writer and columnist.

Jonathan Saul Freedland (born 25 February 1967) is a British journalist, who writes a weekly column for The Guardian. He presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series The Long View. Freedland also writes thrillers, mainly under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.