Mike Cohen (journalist)

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Mike Cohen is a British journalist, born in Bury in 1967. He is deputy editor of the Jewish Telegraph group of newspapers.

Mike Cohen started his career as a trainee journalist for the Jewish Telegraph, based in Manchester, in May 1987. He was probably the first journalist to interview Sacha Baron Cohen in September 1996, before he created Ali G. Has also interviewed, amongst others, Fish (singer) former lead singer of Marillion , Lenny Kravitz, Amy Winehouse, Ben Kweller, Jason Isaacs, Joey Ramone, Beastie Boys, Jakob Dylan, Graham Gouldman, Eric Wolfson, Willy Schwarz, Matthew Sweet, Helloween, Absentee, Chuck E. Weiss, Bruce Cockburn, Professor Griff, Roberto Benigni, Leiber and Stoller, Regina Spektor, Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, and many other Jewish celebrities and authors. He has also interviewed Zak 'Ziggy' Lichman who went on to make a name for himself on Big Brother in the UK.

His interview with Joey Ramone lasted around 10 minutes as the Ramones frontman kept bursting into tears asking to be called Jeffrey Hyman. After his first interview with Fish before a Marillion concert in Stoke on Trent, Cohen collapsed when he got home. He was ill for three weeks with tonsilitis and discovered that Marillion had had to cancel the remainder of their tour through illness.

He interviewed Sacha Baron Cohen after he had just landed a job at an obscure satellite channel, presenting a children's television show. He joked that he wanted to use the progamme to make all the kids of Britain kosher.