Alex Winston tells us about his new role as News Editor at the Jerusalem Post.
The oldest and largest English-language daily broadsheet newspaper in Israel, not to mention the most read English news website in Israel, The Jerusalem Post, has a new News Editor.
Founded in 1932, the paper has retained its prominence as Israel’s leading English-language news outlet, and it today hosts high-profile conferences featuring world-renowned speakers from the government and business sectors. In 1996, the paper launched JPost.com, reaching millions more readers across the globe.
We caught up with Alex Winston, son of Mandy and Richard, who grew up in LS17 before leaving for Israel 13 years ago, where he has since married to Donna who he met at Manchester University and started a family in Jerusalem. His daughter Isabella is three and his son Jesse was born just days after the Hamas attack. Alex is forging a career at The Post where he is now the News Editor.
Hi Alex! Can you tell us about life in the newsroom?
Hello! So, I’d been working at The Jerusalem Post for about three years until 2021, then I worked for a few nongovernmental organisations and did some other media work before I came back in 2023. The News Editor role had been amalgamated into other roles but now they’ve decided to bring it back as its own separate role.
When I was gone, I was doing interesting work but there wasn’t quite the professional satisfaction I got when I was at the Post. I’ve never found it anywhere else where you go home with a real sense of pride in what we’ve done. We have a very dynamic newsroom, constantly in touch with reporters and dealing with breaking news, there’s always a lot to offer especially in the past six months.
Obviously, the weeks after 7th October everybody in the country was in a national shock. A lot of sad stories come out all the time, it can be a lot to deal with, or for anybody to deal with. But whatever comes out, whatever the news is, we have a duty to keep readers informed and we deal with that in the best way we can.
How did the Leeds Jewish community help shape you?
I am convinced, and nobody will convince me otherwise, that I am from the greatest city in the world. I love Leeds (and Leeds United of course) with all my heart and I’m so proud to come from there. There are two things that I would say have made me who I am today, one is growing up in Leeds, a northern city, in a northern culture, and being Jewish is the other.
The truth is, I grew up in a Jewish household and community, but I didn’t grow up in a particularly Zionist household. It was important to us, but it wasn’t like we came to Israel every year. So, I didn’t actually come to Israel for the first time until I was 16 – it was a real turning point in my life. I had the choice, I could either go with Leeds Grammar School to South America for a month, visiting Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile or I had the opportunity to come to Israel for the first time with a Jewish youth group.
It was incredible, I just couldn’t believe it, it was such a different culture with so much history, which I just fell in love with. If I hadn’t come on that trip who knows where I would be now, everything could have been different.
What are your future goals and ambitions?
Definitely I would want to stay here in Israel, if anything because the weather is so much better! In a warmer climate, you’re just a little bit happier.
I want to be doing this role for many years to come – I don’t envisage doing anything else for a long time because I enjoy it so much and I really believe it’s worthwhile. I’m really excited as well to see what changes happen around here and to see how we continue to stay on top of the news.
