The Press Council has ruled against the News Corp owned Courier Mail for its “Monster Chef and the She Male” front page, citing that the story was presented in a manner that was not “reasonably fair and balanced”.
The story and corresponding front page appeared in October of last year, and focused on the brutal murder of Mayang Prasetyo by her partner, who was a chef in Queensland.
After the front page was published a change.org petition was quickly started calling for the paper to apologise for the front page and the attached story, with the creator of the petition saying Prasetyo's sex, as assigned at birth, is irrelevant to her murder.
The Australian Press Council agreed handing down its decision today regarding complaints made to the body. The Council noted that the prominent treatment given to the victim’s gender, and the repetitive detail of her sex work, was gratuitous and contributed to the substantial offence caused by the terminology used to describe the murder victim.
“This was not sufficiently warranted in the public interest” the adjudication said.
The paper defended its actions however, telling the council this murder suicide was one of the “more gruesome crimes in the state’s history and of significant public interest”. It said the police had examined details of the victim and her partner’s background, including their sex work, as part of the investigation into the murder and as such, these were legitimate matters to report.
However, The Courier Mail said it accepted that the terms used had evidently caused offence and in responding to complaints it had taken several steps to address the concerns of readers.
It said it had published a prominent editorial the following day headed “Victim’s memory should be valued”, saying that it had “no intention of diminishing the value of Mayang’s life”.
The publication also said in the two weeks following publication of the articles, it published a number of letters and articles critical of the publication including a lengthy comment piece from the Transgender Support Association of Queensland.
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