Teachers require scrutiny, of course, as they teach children all day. Thing is, teaching has a statutory regulator which decides what the standards are and who is falling short; something the press lack. Today we find ourselves in a world where the most bigoted and fearmongering journalist for the most bigoted and fearmongering mainstream newspaper can hound an innocent person to death without any fear of being held accountable for his actions.
No. This is unacceptable. There is no "free press" anyway, and nor were their actions in this case legal, but they can get away with it. The "freedom of the press" amounts to nothing more than a series of crimes that we all know they won't be prosecuted for committing.
There needs to be a law governing press activity, and it needs to read as follows:
A journalist or media business of any kind cannot begin to investigate the private life of any individual unless they have reasonable grounds to suspect that they will find information relating to some act of public misfeasance committed by the individual under investigation, nor can they publish any such details that do not have any bearing on an act of public misfeasance committed by the individual in question.
Or as an example, an MP having an affair is committing an act of private misfeasance, so it cannot be published. An MP having an affair who uses his expenses to buy the silence of his mistress is committing an act of public misfeasance, so the whole business can be published.
A teacher is not doing wrong by being trans, so digging into such a person's private life should be unlawful.
In my view, Richard Littlejohn’s article about transgender teacher, Lucy Meadows, should not have been published by the Daily Mail in the first place. It was an unkind, unwarranted attack on a vulnerable person who was highly regarded by pupils, parents and teachers alike.
ReplyDeleteMs Lucy Meadows posed no threat to the local community; on the contrary she was considered a ‘valued member of staff’. The real danger to the community were the media who chose to vilify Miss Meadows, and now she is dead, presumably by committing suicide.
I’ve today published a blog about this issued called, “UK media needs a sex change”
http://goo.gl/xdJBd
I'll give that a look in a sec.
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