Tabloid newspapers have a chequered record on this topic. However the Daily Mail’s report on this particular story – and the pattern of popular and unpopular comments underneath – reflects a growing awareness of, and sympathy for, trans* issues. One of the most criticised articles on Leelah Alcorn’s suicide was published, not in a tabloid, but in the New Statesman. It may not be immediately apparent why this article, which takes those covering Leelah’s death to task for failing to adhere to the Samaritans’ guidelines, has provoked such a hostile response:
It’s hard to think of any non-celebrity death this year that has received as much coverage as Alcorn’s. Searching for her name on Google news turns up 183 articles at the time of writing, with the earliest published two days ago (I’m not going to link to any of the reports). In that piece, almost every single one of the Samaritans’ guidelines is broken. The guidelines tell journalists to “exercise caution when referring to the methods and context of a suicide”: the report provides the means Alcorn used in the headline. The guidelines tell journalists to “avoid the suggestion that a single incident […] was the cause”: the report doesn’t discuss any possible underlying causes, but presents the reported hostility of Alcorn’s parents to her trans status as the sole contributing factor.
As this blogger points out in her response to Ditum’s piece, it’s the identity of the writer which is as problematic as the actual content of the article. I don’t go along with everything she says, but Ditum is indeed perceived to be unsympathetic to trans* issues, and it’s hard – even if you don’t agree that she’s a bigot and think there are problems on both ‘sides’ – not to read the piece through the lens of her previous involvement/reputation in such debates.
I’m inclined to disagree with Ditum’s argument. When a suicide is caused by a particular phenomenon or type of bigotry (homophobic bullying or pressure caused by honour codes or arranged marriages) then I think it can certainly be argued that the need to publicise the problem, and the harm it causes, outweighs the downside to such publicity.
