Press Council rules Daily Mail must not report that woman accused of domestic violence killing is transgender because it is 'irrelevant'

[QuietContraryMary]

"The Council considers that it was not relevant to the alleged criminal acts reported to identify the woman as being transgender. Although it provided some further identification of the woman, it was not necessary to do so. The Council considers that as being transgender was not relevant to the alleged criminality, prominently identifying the woman as transgender in the headline and again in the article could contribute to substantial prejudice towards transgender people."

www.presscouncil.org.au/document-search/adj-1756/

Notes:

• This is the Press Council Australia though such 'logic' pervades the Western world
• The charges were subsequently dropped but at the time the tw was suspected of killing a man in a 'domestic incident' after breaking in. Domestic violence.
• The Press Council says that it is no more relevant that the 'woman' is 'transgender' than say 'white', so it should not be mentioned.
• This is odd, because what about the inconvenient fact that most crime is committed by men. Should we not also censor that because it might excite prejudice against men?
• Moreover in the context of a man being killed there's a very significantly difference in strength between a biologically male suspect and a biologically female one. No such differences pertain to say religion or race.
• One for the 'Daily Mail lies' ploppers I think. Daily Mail reported facts, and they were told not to.

My point was that once you have an authority that is able to say to the press "this is acceptable" or "this is unacceptable" you are setting things up so that a few years down the line the press can be gagged if they want to say things that are politically inconvenient, for example "it is impossible for people to change sex".

Remember that we had a Labour MP Stephen Doughty in Parliament scolding journalists of The Times over them having a political outlook that in his view was opposed to progressive politics. (Ha, I typed this paragraph and then R0wantrees beat me to it.)

You keep accountability. I'm not sure how it's maintained. But you don't do it by having it imposed by a government organisation or quango that will end up making politically expedient decisions on whether or not the press needs to be silenced.

Quite simply, accountability of the press should never be in the hands of an organisation that is exposed to the ebbs and flows of politics.

You keep accountability. I'm not sure how it's maintained.

I completely agree. The debate seemed to fizzle post-Levenson and there were no satisfactory solutions suggested.

We probably agree on much of this. I was stating a personal reflection that during the Leveson hoo-ha there was a big push to get in a strong press regulator that could flex its muscles and knock some heads in the press to stop them publishing "bad stuff" and I was in favour of this.

I now realise that we'd be in a terrible mess now because no newspaper would have been able to publish views that opposed the gender identity ideology.

The translobby has appropriated many things, its not surprising that they have done so with regards press scrutiny.

I now realise that we'd be in a terrible mess now because no newspaper would have been able to publish views that opposed the gender identity ideology.

Yes, and I wonder if Helen Belcher, Roz Kaveney and Trans Media Watch would have had quite the same in roads to the Beeb and the other non-Murdoch media if there hadn't been such clement conditions to be exploited in the wake of Leveson.

X post rowan