The Australian is a Murdoch paper, which makes it fairly conservative, but
it is one of the two major papers in Sydney (the other is the Sydney Morning
Herald) and is not regarded as a right wing paper. It differs from the SMH
in that it is published in all the Australian States rather than having a
single-city base.
I don't think the Australian is consciously phobic. They publish what they
think will sell. And although the gay and lesbian communities have emerged
to some extent into the sunlight of acceptance (Sydney stages the world's
biggest Gay amd Lesbian Mardi Gras, as you probably know) transsexuals are
still seen as 'fair game'. The Sydney Morning Herald published a full page
piece a couple of years ago entitled "When Father Becomes Mother", written
by a man about his father who had waited until he was in his late sixties to
transition because he did not want to distress his wife and waited until she
died before putting his lifelong needs into practice. The piece was full of
self-pity and took a few side-swipes at the T* community in general but
completely lacked compassion for the father.
I wrote a rejoinder entitled "Open Letter to a Bigoted Wimp" but this was
rejected by the SMH because it was a personal attack (which was what the
original piece was) and because there "was not much interest in the subject
and this had now been exhausted...". I asked them to consider whether they
would have published the original if it had been an attack on gay people or
Aboriginals but received no response.
I consider myself fortunate that on this occasion the Australian has agreed
to publish my piece.
Katherine
>Kate,
>Is The Australian some kind of right wing radical
>paper? This is disgusting that such a blatantly phobic
>column would be printed as (pardon the unfortunate
>pun) straight news!
>Justin
>
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