A senior Australian Jewish leader is demanding that the New York Times fire a Melbourne-based reporter who admitted to leaking the contents of an Israel-backing WhatsApp chat group to a third party, which led to its members being doxxed and harassed by Palestinian sympathizers.
Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, told the Guardian on Tuesday that the Gray Lady should part ways with Natasha Frost, the journalist whose leak of the chat contents shared among 600 Jewish professionals on WhatsApp resulted in death threats, doxxing and harassment.
The Times said it took “appropriate action” against Frost, who remains employed by the newspaper.
“Yes, I think that this is fundamentally a very egregious breach of trust that resulted in very, very serious harm and damage to many, many people,” Leibler told the Guardian in response to a question over whether Frost should be fired.
“The stories that have come out publicly about some of these people are the ones that are prepared to speak publicly, but we were acting for more than 25 people that were doxed.”
Leibler told the Guardian that the Jewish professionals who had their names, addresses and photos leaked online have suffered mental health repercussions that have prevented them from coming out publicly.
“For the system to work, journalists, like lawyers, need to maintain those basic standards of integrity,” he said of Frost.
The Post has sought comment from the Times.
Leibler was reacting to a Wall Street Journal investigation that was published last week about the mass doxing incident, which has prompted Australian law enforcement officials to mull legislation that would make the practice of publishing someone else’s sensitive personal data online without consent a crime.
According to the Journal, Frost downloaded some 900 pages of content from the chat thread and shared it with the subject of an article about an Australian journalist who was fired from her job over social media posts critical of Israel.
The WhatsApp group was made up primarily of Jewish professionals who exchanged views following the horrific Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, which claimed the lives of nearly 1,200 Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Frost took an interest in the group and gained access as part of her research into a story about the controversial firing of Antoinette Lattouf, an Australian-born journalist of Lebanese descent who was dismissed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for Instagram posts in which she accused Israel of war crimes.
At around the time Frost published her Jan. 23 story about the Lattouf firing, a spreadsheet containing the names, photographs and home addresses of the WhatsApp group members went viral among Palestinian sympathizers online.
Several of the WhatsApp chat group members reported that they had to close down their businesses and relocate to other towns.
Others reported being accosted on the street by pro-Palestinian protesters.
“It has been brought to our attention that a New York Times reporter inappropriately shared information with the subject of a story to assist the individual in a private matter, a clear violation of our ethics,” a Times spokeswoman told the Journal last week.
“This was done without the knowledge or approval of The Times.”
Frost also released a statement through a Times spokesperson which read: “I shared this document with one individual.”
“Its subsequent dissemination and misuse happened entirely without my knowledge or consent,” Frost said in the statement.
The journalist added that she was “shocked by these events, which put me and many others at terrible risk.”
“I deeply regret my decision.”
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