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26Jan
A Spade is a Spade is a Spade
The story of the 16 year old lesbian, who earlier this month was attacked by two boys in a Hamrun square, caused public uproar… and rightly so.
When the story broke, it was reported that the attack happened on a bench, and that the police had identified and spoken to the alleged ‘thugs’. At the time it wasn’t yet known whether they had pressed charges against them, or if they intended to.
It was later reported that criminal charges had in fact been pressed even before the story was leaked to the media. How the victim and her family didn’t know about this important piece of information before going to the press is mind boggling, but since I’ve long given up hope of understanding how the police and our justice system work, my gripe on the matter revolves on how the media reported the incident.
Most editors felt it necessary to highlight the victim’s sexuality in their headlines, which resulted in titles and captions which read – THUGS ATTACK LESBIAN, 16, ON A BENCH / BROTHERS TO BE CHARGED OVER ASSAULT ON LESBIANS / TWO TEENAGERS TO BE CHARGED WITH ATTACKING LESBIANS, and CHURCH COMMISSION CONDEMNS ATTACK ON LESBIANS.
But some people argued that this was unethical and that the victim’s sexuality should only have been mentioned in the body article, not the headline.
Read on here
What’s wrong with this campaign ?
By alison in Discrimination · Lifestyle · Love · Publications · Reality · Religious & Political · The Sunday Times 2 Comments »
www.timesofmalta.com
The “lesbian” is first and foremost a human being. Her sexual orientation is irrelevant. Persons should not be beaten up for any reason.
But using the word lesbian does make for a more “interesting” headline.
The word ‘lesbian’ does not make it more interesting, agreed. But without it the headline wouldn’t have been informative enough. If (as was implied by the reports) she was attacked because of her sexual orientation, then her sexuality was essential to the story …therefore should have been in the headline.