Press Council upholds complaint against Star Observer over homophobia suicide article
Weekly gay and lesbian newspaper the Sydney Star Observer wrongly suggested a 14-year-old killed himself because of homophobic “faggot” taunts, the Australian Press Council has ruled.
The newspaper wrote about Alex Wildman, who committed suicide after being bullied at school. It headlined the article: “Gay slurs led to suicide”.
The complaint to the APC stated that the tragedy had been “opportunistically appropriated for gay self-interest” by the article. A small portion of the evidence at the inquest was that disparaging comments had been made about him on his girlfriend’s MySpace page.
“Having examined the inquest findings by the NSW Deputy State Coroner, it was clear to the Council that he did not nominate homophobia as a contributing factor to the boy’s suicide. In findings of more than 10,000 words, he referred to “gay” and “faggot” only, which was in the context of postings on the My Space site, and said that these quotes were “hurtful and spiteful”, not homophobic.”
The APC added: “The Council considered that the article was clearly inaccurate in its assertions about the findings of the inquest. The article also was likely to be interpreted by many readers as implying that the boy was homosexual, which is inaccurate because there was no evidence to that effect, let alone compelling evidence of a kind, which might have justified its inclusion. The Council considered that the heading and article were irresponsible.”
The press watchdog said that the Sydney Star Observer should have published a correction and apology after receiving a complaint.
In an online version of the article, which does not appear to have been amended despite the ruling, a reader points out that other publications including The Daily Telegraph made no mention of homophobia being a contributing factor. The Star Observer’s editor replies: “Exactly why we felt it necessary to bring to everyone’s attention John. A questionable oversight on behalf of that particular publication.”
The question of whether the word faggot is inherently homophobic has been hotly debated since swimmer Stephanie Rice used it on Twitter earlier this month.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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the question of whether the word ‘faggot’ is inherently homophobic was NOT hotly debated in the earlier troll-baiting article on Mumbrella. That is has transcended to become a harmless but stil perjorative Gen Y phrase was weakly suggested by the author but unequivocally rejected in the comments stream
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Shall we hotly debate whether it was hotly debated?
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I was saddened to watch a program on Alex’s life (and death) story on television some months ago.
The show did not suggest Alex was a young gay teen, but I have to say that as a gay man myself, I did think that perhaps he was, based on a few elements about his life and also oninstinct. (I’m not suggesting I have a gaydar). I could be wrong,
However this raises another point about how the police in NSW are quite often reluctant to admit that many bashings that occur in ‘queer Sydney’ are gay hate crimes or motivated by homophobia, when all the evidence suggest that they are.
These bashings rarely (if ever) make the mainstream media, where community papers such as Sydney Star Observer are diligent in featuring them and are to be commended for making the gay community at large aware of the dangers that exist.
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Just goes to show how backward this country really is when it comes to sexuality. Maybe we should still be keeping women locked up in the kitchen at home or not allowing changes to the white Australia policy….
While the world changes, Australia crawls into its hole, yet again to hide from change.
Just decriminalise anything to do with homosexuality and let the stigmatism drain out of these words once and for all.
Anyone supporting restriction to these changes gives any bully or idiot reason to use these kind of taunts in the school yard and work place.
Black, white, protestant, catholic… do we really care??!!!
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Have to agree with Sven. I wasn’t aware there was any debate till I read that previous Mumbrella article. Remains homophobic as far as I’m concerned.
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I completely agree with sven.
And after clicking the link to the online version of this article think that your article is also a little misguided.
Your article says that SSO “wrongly suggested a 14-year-old killed himself because of homophobic “faggot” taunts…” when in fact the article wrongly suggests that this is what the coroner found.
Reading the above I was very supportive of SSO for writing the article and suggesting that being called a faggot was enough to drive someone to suicide. But after clicking on the link I realised where the Press Council’s issue was in the first line – not from reading your article.
I guess we all make mistakes, and the Press Council’s findings are another example (along with the other issue being “hotly” debated) of how interpretation of meaning can vary.
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Hi Dibbydazzler. The headline on the Star Observer article was “Gay slurs led to suicide”. Not “Coroner says gay slurs led to suicide”.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Awwww what a sad thing to happen 🙁 poor boy and poor newspaper
But on a diff not, that newspaper get’s me every time! I am a straight person and think, ‘oooo that’s nice, free new newspaper’ and it takes a while before i realise it is a gay and lesbian publication!
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@SarahL… and then what happens when you realise?
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Me too, really interested to hear what happens when you realise..
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@Alison F and @Amaya C well I hope that no one got the wrong impression of me picking it up and gave me a strange look! have a laught and have a look over the articles and quite enjoy reading it and seeing some different views on things! It’s mainly because many of the articles are just like ones from anywhere else, they don’t have their gay and lesbian slant to all of it.
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I am prepared to believe that the homosexuality of some victims of may be hidden by certain parties (eg.families) but if the evidence was clear there was a gay bashing, I dont understand why our newspapers wouldn’t rush to publish it, especially online.
Indeed, some people I know call the herald the Sydney Morning Homosexual.
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Hi Bucks,
I don’t think there was any evidence of that.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella