JTA

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is a not-for-profit international news agency and wire service, founded on February 6, 1917, by Jacob Landau in The Hague, Netherlands, as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau. It aimed to report news affecting Jewish communities globally, especially during World War I. Renamed JTA in 1919 in London, it moved its headquarters to New York City in 1922. By 1925, it served over 400 Jewish and non-Jewish newspapers.

Early fairness and greatness

Known as the "Associated Press of the Jewish media," JTA covers Judaism- and Jewish-related topics with correspondents in Washington, DC, Jerusalem, Moscow, and over 30 cities across North and South America, Israel, Europe, Africa, and Australia. In 1937, the Gestapo closed its Berlin bureau, accusing it of "endangering public safety and order." In 1940, JTA created the Overseas News Agency (ONA), secretly funded by British intelligence (MI6) to support espionage and plant stories in U.S. media during World War II. JTA maintained an apolitical, non-denominational stance, emphasizing balanced reporting under an independent board, affiliated with 70 Faces Media. Praised by Albert Einstein (1933) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1942) for its professionalism, it remains the oldest and most widely-read Jewish wire service.

2000's+

In 2015, JTA merged with MyJewishLearning to form 70 Faces Media, North America's largest Jewish media group, with a 2014 budget of $2 million. Notable figures include founder Landau (later linked to The Jerusalem Post), journalist Daniel Schorr (1934–1941), sports editors Haskell Cohen and Harold U. Ribalow, novelist Eleazar Lipsky (president in the 1960s), and Lillie Shultz (early 1930s staff). Editors-in-chief include Boris Smolar (1924–1967), Andy Silow-Carroll (until 2019), and Philissa Cramer (since 2020).

JTA has interviewed figures like Julia Haart, Melissa Rosenberg, Idina Menzel, Ezra Furman, and Jimmy Carter, and won 10 Simon Rockower Awards in 2021, 16 in 2022 (eight first places), and 20 in 2023.

In recent decades, JTA has been perceived as shifting leftist by some critics, with a lean-left bias noted in its coverage compared to conservative leaning outlets like JNS. Media bias assessments rate it as center or least biased, but community feedback often highlights a left-leaning tilt. Conservatives have criticized JTA for mainstreaming far-left views and enabling radical leftist reporting.