I’ve gone back and forth on whether to write about this topic or not over the last week. But I’ve spent so long researching it now that I’d like to share some of it with you!
This will not be my usual debunking of one particular headline, but instead I want to address and debunk a few of the narratives that have arisen during the media frenzy over Jason Arday, and look at some specific media examples that have stood out.
This will likely be a two-parter; otherwise I’ll never get it published!
I can’t imagine that there is anyone who has not heard of Jason Arday at this point, and that he tragically died just over a week ago, following nearly three weeks of intense media scrutiny.
But if you haven’t, Jason was diagnosed with autism and developmental delay as a young child, reportedly did not speak until he was 11 and was illiterate until his late teens.
He then went on to get a degree in PE and education, 2 masters qualifications and then a PhD in 2015. He eventually became a professor at Glasgow University and then got appointed to Cambridge in 2023.
As well as his early backstory and his academic career, a defining part of Jason’s life was his sporting and fundraising endeavours, which have come under immense scrutiny in the last 3 weeks.
I will touch on a few of the claims, but so much is still unknown. There being no available evidence of something, which is what the bulk of the media coverage rests on, does not automatically mean that thing didn’t happen. But it also obviously could mean that, so I will not be speculating on things there is no evidence for!
Following accusations of plagiarism in a Substack post, titled DEI Fraud and Cover-Up at Cambridge, by disgraced former Cambridge academic, Nathan Cofnas, the media went into a feeding frenzy, scouring every talk, podcast, interview he ever gave, alongside his upcoming book, attempting to discredit every single area of Jason’s life, both academic and personal.
(Breaking news: Nathan Cofnas has been suspended from his role at Ghent University. This follows senior academics at Ghent University compiling a 19-page document in May (2 months before his Arday Substack post) explaining why they did not believe he should have been given the role.)
Following 41 individual articles in 9 days, in British newspapers, starting with the Telegraph reporting on Cofnas’ Substack allegations, Jason resigned on the 5th of August, his academic reputation in tatters.
At that point, another 188 news articles about him were published in the next 9 days before he was found dead on the 14th of August. There have been another 106 in the week since…
That level of media hounding is unprecedented, even for a disgraced politician or celebrity, let alone for a largely unknown academic who’d had a bit of media coverage in the past. Other disgraced academics, and lying or plagiarising public figures (covered in part 2!) barely got a mention in the press and rarely lost their jobs.
Various people close to Jason warned the media in the weeks leading up to his death what the excessive, intrusive and often cruel and ridiculing coverage was having on his already vulnerable mental health.
Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, and someone who knew Jason personally, wrote a post on Twitter on the 31st July about the high levels of suicidality in autism and said, “I’m very concerned about the impact of the media coverage on Professor Jason Arday who is autistic.” He ended with: “I cannot stand by and watch when an autistic man is on the ground, and the kicking continues. This is relentless bullying of a vulnerable autistic man and raises safeguarding issues. It’s time to stop.”
Nels Abbey, a writer who knew Jason, was contacted on the 3rd August to ask if he would be interviewed on the subject of the allegations. He was unavailable but added, “I’m extremely concerned for Jason’s well-being”. The contact replied asking if he could recommend anyone else. Nels replied, “I don’t, I’m afraid. Most people feel we’re in a life-saving situation”
On the 5th August Jason resigned, saying he had reached “the limits of what any person could reasonably be expected to endure”
You can see from the analysis undertaken by News Cord, what happened next…
Several journalists at the Guardian were contacted by a friend of Jason, saying she “feared for him” and asking them to stop for the sake of “his welfare”.
Jolyon Maughem of the Good Law Project, who had been supporting Jason throughout, also contacted various media outlets and asked that they dial down the coverage as he feared for Jason’s life.
I need to add that there has been no official cause of death reported as yet.
The Times and Sunday Times didn’t just run 41 articles about Jason in those 18 days, 33 of which came AFTER he had already resigned; Meta advert analysis shows they ran multiple versions of three stories between the 4th August and the 16th August (two days after he died) as paid adverts across Meta.
One advert, which ran for 2 days after his death, A woman taught by the academic said she learnt nothing of substance and was accused of white privilege when she challenged him, reached 195,746 individual accounts across Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
The piece was a republished article from Unheard, which itself appeared to have been taken from an anonymous Reddit post from an account claiming they were a student of Jason’s from 2018 during his time as a lecturer at the University of Roehampton - five years before he became a Cambridge professor. They didn’t like his teaching style, accused him of being late, and said they complained when he awarded them 70% for a piece of work because they expected 75%. They claimed he accused them of ‘white privilege’ for bringing it up.
The post also said, “The University of Roehampton was seemingly aware of his failings yet did nothing, avoiding controversy by allowing him to move on to another set of students.”
Yet the final paragraph of the Times article states: “The university has reviewed its student casework records and identified no complaints relating to Arday during his period of employment.”
So, the unverified and contested word of an anonymous Reddit user was used as the headline of a paywalled article that the Times paid to reach nearly 200,000 individual Facebook/Instagram/Threads users, even after his death.
In contrast, I have read many comments from his students which highlight attributes of kindness, patience, compassion, and support that are evident to those who heard or saw him speak. I recommend listening to his podcast interview with James O’Brien in 2023 to get a flavour of the man, contested claims aside.
Twitter advertising is no longer transparent, so it is impossible to know the stats there, but I saw these Times stories coming up regularly as adverts on my feed during the same time frame, so we know they were being pushed on there too.
I now want to move on to look at some of the aspects of his personal life that have been widely covered in the media as ‘lies’, for which I believe we have ample evidence to show they weren’t lies at all
When this story first broke, one of the more “outrageous” claims he was accused of making was that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days!
And yet, what I’m about to highlight has been available in the public domain since 2010, although some of it has required the Web Archive to uncover - freely available to everyone. Even journalists…
Jason Arday’s Just Giving page is still up for his 30 marathons in 35 days, which he aimed to do from Monday 19th July to Sunday 22nd August 2010. He was aiming to raise £5000 to split between Shelter, the Homeless charity, and the Shooting Star children’s Hospice.
217 individual donations eventually raised £6,285.
We know at this point that he was a fit and able sports lecturer in his mid 20s, who was playing semi-professional football at the time (More on that later!)
Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days with limited training aged 47, 27 marathons in 27 days 7 years later, and 32 marathons in 31 days on a treadmill in lockdown.
14th July - Compress Yourself, compression retailer press release; “Compression clothing retailer backs challenge to run 30 marathons in 35 days”
20th July - Richmond and Twickenham Times: Richmond College lecturer finishes first of 30 marathons in aid of Shelter and Shooting Star Trust, reports he completed his first marathon in 4 hours and 14 minutes and was supported by Shooting Star Trust staff at the halfway point.
13th August - TES, formerly the Times Educational Supplement, reported on the marathons, saying Arday was “following in Eddie Izzard’s footsteps.”
13th August - Your Local Guardian:Clapham-based lecturer close to completing 30 marathons in 35 days, interviewed the director of fundraising and marketing at Shooting Star, who said they cycled his 24th marathon with him, adding, “I stayed with Jason throughout and we shared life stories through the night. I am stunned by this splendid man, and found my moments with him tremendously inspiring.” Three colleagues were also reported running with him for part of that marathon.
25th August - Richmond and Twickenham Times: Clapham-based Jason Arday completes 30 marathons in 35 days for Shelter and the Shooting Star Children’s Hospice, includes a photo of him at the finish line with his supporters and reported that some had joined him along the route, with about 50 of them running the last 2 miles of the final marathon with him. They also reported, “The college lecturer, from Clapham, completed the gruelling challenge on Sunday at Piccadilly Circus after enduring daily ice baths and a hairline fracture to his leg - all while studying for a Master’s degree.”
This required the WebArchive to access and provides a day-by-day account of his progress, how far he went, what his Running song of the day was, who he thanked for running with him and fundraising updates.
I have compiled a PDF from the archive posts if you want to read about his progress in his own words.
You have to ask yourself why the rest of the media assumed Prof Arday lied about the feat, and didn’t try to find the evidence that was publicly available proving it was true.
A friend of Jason’s was interviewed by the Socialist Worker on the 16th August 2026 about the “witch-hunt” he faced. She met him in 2008 and knew at the time about his autism, dyslexia, developmental difficulties and had witnessed an epileptic fit in her office.
Alongside providing photos of the marathon, she wrote:
“In 2010, I was with Jason on the last of the 30 marathons he ran in 35 days. Lots of people participated because he did the same route every day. A lot of the other students would meet up with him and run some of the way with him.
“A whole bunch of us ran with him for the second half of his last marathon. We all ended up in Sloane Square, in Chelsea. I’ve got photographs of him with the various T-shirts he wore, emblazoned with the charities he’d been raising money for.
“I can only vouch for the things that I know to be true. And these runs were true. He wasn’t an ordinary person. He was extraordinary.”
That was five days ago, and I have not seen a single newspaper that claimed these marathons were a lie publish anything correcting those claims. Even yesterday, the BBC wrote: “Questions were also asked about Arday’s claims that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days, and 300 miles in three days for charity” in their piece about Cofnas resigning.
Wrapped up in the 30 marathons in 35 days story is the fact the he said he’d suffered a hairline fracture following an epileptic seizure and fall on day 20.
This was reported in the Richmond and Times piece on the final marathon. It was also covered when Jason met Andy Murray in 2012, having been an Olympic torch bearer.
On being a torch bearer, Jason told England Athletics:
“It is an absolute honour! I have been so fortunate to be involved in several fundraising projects, and this opportunity is really down to all the people who contributed to our fundraising projects over the years.”
Beyond those two newspaper references to the fracture, there is no conclusive proof the facture happened, however, his blog showed:
Day 19 - 5 hours 3 mins
A tough run today, but a million thanks to Diane, Dan, Julie and Steve for running with me – you were a massive help!
Ice bath now, then rest.
Day 20 - 5 hours 53 mins
20 down, 10 to go – feels amazing to have got to 20!
Eased up on the pace today after the tough run yesterday, and I think that’s a good move for the time being. The countdown to the finish starts here!
Mike, Megan and Hannah were fantastic support and thanks so much for running with me!
He refers to Day 19 later on:
Day 29 - 5 hours 7 mins
The quickest I‘ve run since marathon no.19 and it felt great. I know it’s going to be busy on Sunday for the final run so this was a chance to put in a speedier time. I really wanted to break 5 hours but didn’t quite make it.
1 to go and I’ve got 4 whole days off!
That is, of course, not proof he suffered a fall and fracture, but it certainly indicates something happened on day 19 that meant he had to take it easy and slow his pace down by almost an hour.
And for those saying it is impossible to have continued running with a hairline fracture, its worth pointing out that footballer Lucy Bronze played the whole of the Euro 2025 tournament with a hairline fracture of the tibia!
Jason’s 30 marathons in 35 days was a life-defining moment for him. It was off the back of that achievement that he was asked to be an Olympic torchbearer. And it also led to his then-girlfriend nominating him for the TV show Surprise Surprise and him getting to meet Andy Murray through that.
When you read the blog, and see the photos, you see an immensely proud, excited, earnest young man, who every day thanked his supporters, wished them a happy birthday, and dedicated his running songs to them.
And it is heart breaking that he died watching the media strip that achievement from him in the public’s eye, being ridiculed for claiming to have done something that he absolutely did do.
Another claim is that he said he’d been a professional footballer.
This requires a different type of debunk, as it is true that he wasn’t a professional footballer!
The issue, is that I can’t find any evidence that he actually said he was one.
There appear to be two sources of evidence circulating that suggest he said this.
One was a conversation he had with Professor Rajani Naidoo at Bath University in 2023. That appears to have come from an incorrect online post summarising the conversation.
Bath put out the following statement on 30th July 2026:
We take the accuracy of our published content seriously, so when a blog was brought to our attention, we reviewed the post summarising a video conversation between Professor Jason Arday and Professor Rajani Naidoo from March 2023. When we realised it contained an inaccurate quotation we corrected the post without delay. This was an unintentional error. The post incorrectly stated that Professor Arday played football to a professional level and joined a professional snooker tour, when he had in fact said he played football to a semi-professional level and did not pursue snooker professionally.
We apologise unreservedly to Professor Arday for this error and for any impact it has had.
I have not seen anyone in the media, other than Byline Times, reference that statement, despite the professional football claim being one of the central components of his apparent “lies”.
The second was a podcast interview called Talking matters. The AI-generated transcript said:
“I had, yes. I was at a professional club at the time, and then at 18 went into some professional games. So I ended up kind of, I wasn’t going to be a…”
He was interrupted at this point, but a screenshot of that transcript has been used as evidence that he claimed he played professional football.
The transcript goes on to say:
“And actually, out of most youth setups, very few people kind of go up. So I was only at Crystal Palace for a handful of years, but I was never going to really progress on to big things because one, there were a lot of physical attributes I didn’t have.
And two, it’s all about actually what’s between the years. And I just didn’t have it to be, I wasn’t good enough to be a professional footballer. But I could apply that aptitude playing kind of non-league football and played non-league football for I think 12 years, 12, 13 years after that.”
So he actually says he wasn’t good enough to be a professional football player - in the podcast that was used as evidence that he claimed to be a professional player!
However, if you actually listen to the podcast, rather than read the transcript, he says:
“I had, yes. I was at a professional club at the time, and then at 18 went into semi-professional games.”
Not “some professional games”, but “semi-professional games”.
Moral of the story, do not rely on AI-generated transcripts of podcasts!
As for playing semi-professional football, we know he played for Lewisham Borough FC as they reported him being out following a broken rib.
We also have a lovely video supplied by one of his teammates’ wives of him singing in the changing rooms after a game. She confirmed he played with her husband at Walton and Hersham FC and Lewisham Borough FC.
As for playing for Crystal Palace, he said that was part of a “youth set up” there, Every top tier club has youth academies, where hundreds of young people play, most of whom will never go on to be professional footballers, as he explains in that podcast.
Crystal Palace have said they do not have records dating back to the time when Arday would have been there (late 90s). Not that they have no record of him, but that they have no records at all. This has been taken as proof he never played there.
It is of course possible that he didn’t play there, but given he was good enought to play semi-professionally at 18, it’s entirely plausible he was playing youth academy football before that.
I can find no evidenece he ever claimed to play professional football for Crystal Palace. But I do have the evidence he said he was NOT good enough to play professionally and that’s why he left Crystal Palace to go and play semi-professionally…
I’m going to leave it there for now. Part two to follow…
We’ve covered three important media-literacy points in this piece:
A respectable newspaper using an anonymous Reddit comment as the basis for a headline and story which they paid to push across social media, as part of an excessive campaign of articles focussed on one man, long after he resigned.
A media narrative stripping a very real life-time achievement from a man, saying there was no evidence to back up his claim of running 30 marathons in 35 days, when that evidence was publicly available all along.
A claim he never made being used as proof that he was a serial liar
As I said at the start, I am only covering things I have evidence for. And I am not suggesting that he didn’t exaggerate, embellish or even lie about other things. He may well have done, but that did not warrant the coverage he received in the weeks leading up to his death.
Thank you to everyone who supports me by reading, subscribing and sharing my work. I can’t tackle the tsunami of misinformation out there on my own. You guys sharing my work, or just using it to inform your side of any argument with friends and relatives, makes a difference as we all try to chip away!
Liking and commenting on my post tells Substack that I’m someone people like to engage with, so all interactions are much appreciated!
And a special thank you to everyone who has signed up as a paid subscriber or bought me a coffee. Your financial support means the world.
I normally have a coffee image here. Today I want to share the photos from the end of Jason’s final marathon. (The poor quality is because they have come from an archived blog and only appeared when copied into a Word document!)
RIP Jason Arday
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