The Sun is in trouble. Years of journalistic malpractice are finally catching up with the venerable tabloid, with employees arrested en-masse on “suspicion” of corruption and bribery.
Associate editor Trevor Kavanagh is upset about this. “Witch-hunt has put us behind ex-Soviet states on Press Freedom”, his editorial thunders. It goes on to detail the humiliation experienced by Sun journalists and their families:
“Instead of being called in for questioning, 30 journalists have been needlessly dragged from their beds in dawn raids, arrested and held in police cells while their homes are ransacked. [...]
Wives and children have been humiliated as up to 20 officers at a time rip up floorboards and sift through intimate possessions, love letters and entirely private documents. [...]
Nobody has been charged with any offence, still less tried or convicted.
Yet all are now on open-ended police bail, their lives disrupted and their careers on hold and potentially ruined.“
How awful! And it’s not like Sun journalists would ever do such a thing to others, is it?
But wait! what’s this we see next to Kavanagh’s article in the online edition?
(click image for full size)
That’s right, it’s the Pregnant Man! Let’s take a look at his story.
Don’t forget kids, private lives are for News International employees, not for proles! Particularly queer proles.
Of course, it could be that the Sun is simply asking for contributions because all their journalists have been arrested…
(For more constructive commentary, see this powerful post by Ralph Francis Fox, as well as analyses from Jane Fae and Christine Burns.)
Tags: bribery, corruption, harassment, hypocrisy, Leveson Enquiry, media coverage, police, The Sun, trans men actually exist, transphobia, you're doing it wrong
15/02/2012 at 11:35 pm |
[...] I’m not going to link to any article apart from Jane’s Fae excellent response to the bigotry pedalled by The Mail, The Telegraph, The Sun. I was genuinely shocked by the level of vitriol on display – misunderstanding and disagreement I was expecting. Calling trans people “revolting”, “bizarre” and “freakish” – I had actually hoped we’d moved on from the words my childhood bullies had used to describe me. But the pinnacle of the press’s transphobic reaction had to be this – The Sun deciding to hunt down the man in question, and asking their readers to help them. [...]