News Corp is under fire over the controversial front page of the Courier Mail today. A change.org petition has received more than 10 000 signatures in one day, calling on the newspaper to apologise for the headline that referred to a murdered transgender women as a “shemale”.
The petition started by The Brisbane Trans Community is requesting the paper make a public apology for the article entitled "Killed and cooked trans woman was high-class ‘shemale’ sex worker". The group is calling on the Courier Mail to actually follow its own code of conduct for future articles.
The code that The Brisbane Trans Community is referring to is point 8.1 of the paper's own code of conduct. It reads: "Do not make pejorative reference to a person’s race, nationality, colour, religion, marital status, sex, sexual preferences, age, or physical or mental capacity. No details of a person’s race, nationality, colour, religion, marital status, sex, sexual preferences, age, or physical or mental incapacity should be included in a report unless they are relevant."
The creators of the petition argue that Mayang Prasetyo's sex, as assigned at birth, is irrelevant to her murder.
One signatory of the petition cited that: “As a member of the transgendered community I find the use of this term to be very derogative and demeaning to me. It contributes in no way to the content of the article and I can find no reason for its use other than sensationalism and to demean the individual and therefore the transgendered community. It is simply mean, derogative and detrimental to me and others, very inappropriate and poor reporting.”
The front page also caused a stir on social media with users on Twitter calling the language used "revolting, disgusting and shameless".
The press council has also confirmed that at least one complaint has been made about the story.
News Corp declined to comment.
View some of the aforementioned tweets below:
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