Jewish leader calls on NY Times to fire reporter behind pro-Israel WhatsApp leak

A senior Australian Jewish leader is calling on the New York Times to fire a Melbourne-based reporter who admitted to leaking the contents of an Israel-supporting WhatsApp chat group to third parties, resulting in the members being doxxed and harassed by Palestinian sympathizers.

Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, told the Guardian on Tuesday that the Grey Lady should part ways with Natasha Frost, the journalist whose leak of the chat contents of 600 Jewish professionals on WhatsApp led to death threats, doxxing and harassment.

The Times said it had taken “appropriate action” against Frost, who remains employed by the newspaper.

“Yes, I think this is fundamentally a very egregious breach of trust that has resulted in very, very serious harm and injury to many, many people,” Leibler told the Guardian in response to a question about whether Frost should be fired.

“The stories that have come out about some of these people are the ones that can be talked about publicly, but we have worked for more than 25 people whose data has been exposed.”

Leibler told the Guardian that the Jewish professionals whose names, addresses and photos were published online suffered from mental health problems that prevented them from speaking out publicly.

“For the system to work, journalists, like lawyers, must adhere to these basic standards of integrity,” he said of Frost.

The Post has asked the Times for comment.

Leibler was responding to a Wall Street Journal investigation into the mass doxxing incident published last week, which prompted Australian law enforcement to consider a bill that would criminalize the practice of posting another person's sensitive personal information online without their consent.

According to the Journal, Frost downloaded about 900 pages of content from the chat thread and shared them with the subject of an article about an Australian journalist who was fired for social media posts critical of Israel.

The WhatsApp group consisted mainly of Jewish professionals who were communicating following the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, which left nearly 1,200 Israeli soldiers and civilians dead.

Frost became interested 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 fired from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for accusing Israel of war crimes in Instagram posts.

Around the time Frost published her article on the Lattouf shooting on January 23, a spreadsheet containing the names, photos and home addresses of the WhatsApp group members went viral among Palestinian sympathizers online.

Several members of the WhatsApp chat group reported that they had to close their businesses and move to other cities.

Others reported being attacked on the street by pro-Palestinian protesters.

“It has been brought to our attention that a New York Times reporter inappropriately disclosed information to the individual who was the subject of a story in order to assist that individual with a private matter. This is a clear violation of our ethics,” a Times spokeswoman told the Journal last week.

“This was done without the knowledge or consent of The Times.”

Frost also released a statement through a Times spokesman saying, “I have shown this document to an individual.”

“The subsequent distribution and misuse occurred entirely without my knowledge or consent,” Frost said in the statement.

The journalist added that she was “shocked by these events, which have put me and many others in terrible danger.”

“I deeply regret my decision.”