Um…such as?

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Ophelia Benson

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Pink News does not know how to journalism.

Woman ordered to pay compensation over ‘horrific’ transphobic messages

Under that is a generic photo of a woman of – yes! – grandmotherish age (cue taken from Jolyon Maugham was it?) poking daintily at a phone, with a potted plant by her side.

A woman in Scotland has been ordered to pay compensation after admitting sending a series of “horrific” transphobic messages to a trans woman.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear, how horrific. Like what, for instance?

Lyndsey Peebles, 67, pleaded guilty to sending messages of a “grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing character” between 29 September and 20 October last year.

Court papers said the messages concerned the victim’s gender and were sent to cause distress, with the charge aggravated by prejudice relating to transgender identity, as reported by The National.

Yes ok we get it; examples please?

Appearing at Greenock Sheriff Court for sentencing this week, Peebles was told by Sheriff James Varney that, in a social work report, she had indicated she “did not think the individual could have been hurt by the comments”, remarks he described as “horrific”.

Her solicitor said Peebles’ judgement had been “clouded” by “serious issues” at the time, which she had since addressed, adding that she was “truly ashamed” and had “never been in any form of bother before”.

Sheriff Varney told her: “Be under no illusion, this is a hate crime you have pled guilty to,” adding that the comments had “no place in society”.

And then in the last paragraph we get the details of her sentence.

See the problem?

No substance at all. Nothing. A blank. Lots of horror-shouting, with zero particulars.

Is this how Pink News usually does journalism?

Comments

One response to “Um…such as?”

  1. Arcadia Avatar
    Arcadia

    I have noticed that this standard is not unusual these days, including in mainstream media outlets like Australia’s ABC, not just the cranks at Pink News. There was a huge story a few years ago in Australia about a professional sportsman saying something racist during a match. However, throughout the entire story, which ran for weeks, including the accusation that he said a racist thing, discussion about how awful it is to be racist and say racist things, the sportsman confessing that he said the racist thing, apologising and promising to do better, and the target of his racist utterances accepting the apology, the public was at no stage informed what the apparently racist statement actually was. We were left to hope that the assessment made by others was accurate, but with trust in the media at such a low ebb, that might not have been a smart judgement call. This is especially the case when racist statements exist on a spectrum of severity, and what is racist at all is contested by many members of the public, with arguments for their position of varying levels of defensibility, and this goes double for “transphobia”.

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