Friday, 30 November 2012

Leveson delivers his report

    Yesterday's big news: the publication of the Leveson inquiry report into the culture, practice and ethics of the press. The stories in the public mind involve tapping into the phone messages of murdered children and other similarly criminal activities, but the remit of the inquiry covered all abuses committed.
    Good news for vulnerable and marginalised minorities like us in the transgender community. Trans Media Watch made a very well received submission which was mentioned by Leveson in several places through the report.
    The most significant quote is mentioned in TMW's response to the report(PDF).

it is clear that there is a marked tendency in a section of the press to fail to treat members of the transgender and intersex communities with sufficient dignity and respect... parts of the tabloid press continue to seek to 'out' transgender people notwithstanding its prohibition in the Editors' Code.

    In gathering a corpus of transgender related news stories I've seen ample evidence of this in action and I'm sure I stand with the rest of our community in particularly welcoming this mention of the problem in the Leveson report. TMW asked me for a copy of the corpus before delivering the submission, I hope it was of use to them.
    There seems to be some confusion on the part of the politicians over what sort of legislation is required to implement Leveson's recommendations. It is very clear that they must do something, let's hope it doesn't turn into a "Something must be done".

3 comments:

  1. I don't know why we still have newspapers, they print what they like, have a complete disregard for the privacy of individuals, are too opinionated, don't print the truth, often get their facts wrong, too fond of sensationalism and what they do print most of the time is stale news or rubbish. If I had any authority I would close them all down.

    Shirley Anne

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  2. I think I'd modify that to "I don't know why we have the newspapers we have" :)

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    Replies
    1. Probably the only real driving force is making money!

      Shirley Anne x

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