The Australian Press Council (APC) have released the results of an adjudication regarding a complaint over an article focused on transgender participation in sport.
The article entitled Transgender Sport Safety and Fairness Concerns Raised by Female Volleyball was published in The Daily Telegraph on 27th September 2021 was the source of a complaint to the APC, who found the report breached Standards of Practice.
The online article reported “Female community sporting groups are raising concerns about the issue of transgender athletes playing in women’s competitions, saying officials need to begin addressing the issue and lay out clear guidelines. It comes in the wake of a furore in Queensland over an all-male netball team sweeping to victory against all female teams in an under-18 competition.”
The article included comments attributed to the president of a local NSW volleyball association, saying “she was very welcoming of transgender players, but felt it would be fairer if they played in existing mixed game competitions where both sexes already play together.”
The article also included comments from a co-founder of Save Women’s Sports Australasia who said, “Not only are we being asked to make sacrifices for men who self-declare a special identity, we are now being asked to sacrifice our own competitions to boys and men who simply want to play in our sports codes” and “The evidence unequivocally demonstrates men retain a significant performance advantage even if they have a ‘female gender identity’ and artificially reduce their testosterone levels.”
In response to a complaint received, the Council asked the publication to comment on whether the article complied with the Council’s Standards of Practice which require publications to take reasonable steps to present factual material with reasonable fairness and balance.
The Council noted that the complaint raised concerns that while the article includes comments from people who express concern with transgender athletes playing in women’s competitions, it does not include any balancing comments from a transgender athlete, an LGBTIQA+ sporting association or any other individual or organisation that is supportive of transgender participation in women’s sporting competitions.
The APC’s General Principle 3 states that publishers are required to take steps to ensure factual materials are presented with reasonable fairness and balance.
In their adjudication, the APC also say publications should be especially mindful for the need for balance when reporting on matters of important social debate, and that in certain instances where the article is part of a series on a particular topic, previous or subsequent articles or letters to the editor should be considered if they are published in sufficient proximity to the initial article.
“The Council does not consider the absence of balance in the article the subject of the complaint was addressed by the other articles put forward by the publication. The Council notes that the articles put forward by the publication would not enlighten readers that there is a range of competing views on transgender participation in women’s sport,” the APC said in their summary of the adjudication.
“The Council also notes that none of the articles were published in close temporal proximity to the relevant article, and further, that only one article contained comments that could be reasonably described as being supportive of one transgender athlete’s participation in a women’s sporting competition.”
The APC also found The Daily Telegraph failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that factual material was presented with reasonable fairness and balance in breach of General Principle 3.
“In relation to the publication’s offer of a letter to the editor, the Council has previously stated that while letters can be sometimes used as a remedial tool to address balance, they will not always be an adequate response by a publication to inaccuracy, unfairness or lack of balance in a problematic article or series of articles.”
OIP Staff
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