From Gay Star News UK: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/her-name-was-lucy-press-coverage-teacher%E2%80%99s-death220313
The death of transgender teacher Lucy Meadows, who had her story revealed by the tabloid press, has provoked more bad coverage and again raised questions about press ethics
By Helen Belcher
22 March 2013
When confronted with Trans Media Watch’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into standards in the British press, Dominic Mohan (the editor of the Sun) said on oath to the inquiry: ‘I think we have improved our reporting in these matters … we’ve raised our game in terms of transgender reporting.’
When lawyer Robert Jay QC directly asked him whether the Sun would change its policy and stop running any similar exposes in the future, Mohan’s reply was: ‘I’m making attempts to do that, yes, in the news pages, yes.’ Yet his response to a follow-up question clearly reveals what Mohan thinks of trans people: ‘That main image, I believe, is actually a transsexual who was the star of a TV series that was basically based around deceiving a number of male contestants into thinking that he – that she was a – that she hadn’t been born a man.’
Mohan’s struggle to find the right words reveals his view, as brought out the next day in the Trans Media Watch evidence, that trans people are fundamentally frauds. This view appears to be unamended since Mohan appeared at the inquiry in February last year.
However it happened, Tuesday’s tragic death of Lucy Meadows was initially reported in the Sun as follows: ‘A MALE primary school teacher is believed to have killed himself just four months after angering parents by returning to class as a woman.’
The article repeatedly referred to Lucy by her former name, and consistently referenced ‘him’. Trans as fraud? Not quite who she said she was? Insiduous, isn’t it.
I understand an angry phone call between a journalist and the Sun’s News Editor yesterday evening (21 March) resulted in a few changes, but the core of the article remains much the same. Hold on – ‘we’ve raised our game in terms of transgender reporting’? Hmmm.
Lest you think I’m singling out the Sun for unnecessary exposure in the spotlight, let’s turn to the Daily Mail’s coverage.
Continue reading at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/her-name-was-lucy-press-coverage-teacher%E2%80%99s-death220313
