Over One Hundred and Thirty Thousand Signatures Call For The Sacking or Resignation Of The Daily Mail’s Columnist,Richard Littlejohn, Over ‘He’s In The Wrong Body’ Article.
Over 130,000 signatures have been collected on one of two e-petitions calling on the Daily Mail to fire one of its writers, Richard Littlejohn.
The controversial writer was blasted by thousands of people after the Daily Mail published a piece, in December 2012, entitled “He’s not only in the wrong body… he’s in the wrong job”, about Lucy Meadows, a transgendered primary school teacher, who was found dead in her home last Tuesday.
Creators of the SumOfUs petition said: “The vile article led to a witch hunt targeting Meadows. Newspapers offered to pay parents for a picture of her, and she complained of having to leave home by the back door and arrive early to school to avoid the packs of journalists.
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Sign our petition to the Daily Mail: sack Richard Littlejohn, issue an apology, and institute an editorial review to ensure that this never happens again.”
The two online petitions are hosted by SumOfUs.org and Changes.org. They have received 108, 520 and 22,097 signatures respectively.
The Daily Mail have vehemently defended Littlejohn. A spokesman said: “It is regrettable that this tragic death should now be the subject of an orchestrated Twitterstorm, fanned by individuals – including former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell – with agendas to pursue.”
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Campbell had previously tweeted: “I hope journalists are doorstepping Dacre Murdoch and Littlejohn for their reaction to Lucy Meadows suicide. The Mail really is scum.”
David Allen Green, legal advisor to Trans Media Watch, a charity for transgender people, told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight: “There is no public interest in the story whatsoever. The only part of the story which seems significant is that there is a gender reassignment, what used to be called a sex change.”
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“What makes it especially easy for tabloids is that transgendered people are very unlikely to fight back. They are usually members of the public and have no experience of dealing with media and all they want to do is to make it go away.
“In a way, tabloids treat transgendered people the way they would treat anybody if they could get away with it.”
“There is a sense that transgendered people are fair game for sensationalist reporting. These are people who are going through the most traumatic experiences you can imagine and they are suddenly humiliated by these stories in the tabloids.”
A vigil is due to take place outside the Daily Mail offices today on the 25th March 2013, in Memory of Miss Meadows.
