But now to The Australian, which is under attack for being boring, biased and bullying:

'Dull, predictable, too right wing': former editor of the Australian lets rip - The Guardian, 9 August, 2019

Two weeks ago, remarkably, The Australian’s former editor-in-chief David Armstrong told the world he was cancelling his subscription to the paper because he was tired of its unrelenting conservative columnists.

And he’s not the only former News Corp star to whack The Oz in public for its bias.

Award-winning reporter Tony Koch, seen here with his old boss in 2008, rarely lets a week go by without giving the paper a savaging.

And last week, it was this, quote, “screaming” front-page headline that set him off, tweeting:

… Who would have thought this grubby, insignificant apology for a newspaper would beat up and make racist a tragic event like a murder. How much lower can they go? Just shit. - Twitter, @TonyKoc69285191, 14 August, 2019

But also last week, former Courier-Mail columnist and Australian reviewer, Benjamin Law, who’s now an ABC regular, was going even further, and offering to donate $36 of his hard-earned cash for anyone who cancelled their Australian subscription.

And why did he do that?

To protest at this: The Australian’s newly-created “gender” page, which gathers all its stories on the subject — and there are many — and which, surprise, surprise, are almost all negative:

They’re castrating children - The Australian, 12 August, 2019

Fears grow for trans kids - The Australian, 12 August, 2019

Transgender project ‘out of balance’ - The Australian, 9 August, 2019

Law, who wrote an acclaimed Quarterly Essay in 2017 called "Moral Panic 101" that focused on The Australian’s campaign against Safe Schools, tweeted:

Despicable: the @australian has now set up a dedicated page to demonise and spread misinformation about trans and gender-variant youth. Promoting fringe anti-trans extremists while campaigning against medical experts and kids hospitals. - Twitter, @mrbenjaminlaw, 10 August, 2019

The Australian has written no less than 18 stories on gender since the 7th of August. Or more than one a day.

And apart from a handful on cricket’s new transgender policy, written by the sports writers, they’re almost all full of fear and warnings:

… trans reform bill will put women at risk - The Australian, 8 August, 2019

… trans law reforms could make it harder to track criminals - The Australian, 7 August, 2019

Many of the articles are provoking hundreds of comments. And it’s clear The Australian’s loyal readers just love the beat of this new drum:

The Gender agenda is out of control! - The Australian, 15 August, 2019

Why are we so quick to accept delusion as the norm. - The Australian, 12 August, 2019

But The Australian’s coverage is shamelessly one-eyed.

And so are many of the experts it relies on, like John Whitehall:

“Castrating children” is the phrase used by pediatrics professor John Whitehall to describe unscientific experimentation on youth in the name of transgenderism. - The Australian, 12 August, 2019

John Whitehall is former deputy president of Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party. He’s also a regular on Sky, 2GB and in Miranda Devine’s Telegraph columns, even though, by his own admission, he’s never even encountered a transgender patient.

In 2017 he told 60 Minutes:

JOHN WHITEHALL: We’ve all got to believe that there’s no such thing as a boy or a girl, that we’re all somewhere in between. Now I don’t believe that. - 60 Minutes, Channel Nine, 10 September, 2017

Another critic, cited by The Australian in this story, is American lawyer Jane Wheeler, who is president of a group called RIME, or Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics.

Wheeler first commented on the gender debate in The New York Times in May, provoking anger among readers and doubts about her organisation:

I had never heard of “Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics” so I googled it and it doesn’t even have a website. The @nytimes should retract the passage immediately and issue a correction. - Twitter, @transscribe, 31 May, 2019

Other experts The Australian has featured include William Malone, a conservative Christian doctor from Idaho who specialises in diabetes.

And Sydney psychologist Professor Dianna Kenny, who warned this month that Australia is facing a “tsunami of gender hysteria”.

But The Australian’s not just offering its platform almost entirely to critics. It’s also accused of ignoring research.

Last week the professional body representing 250 doctors and workers in gender health, AusPATH, put out a statement condemning The Australian’s gender reporting as:

… biased, emotive and … not based on fact. - AusPATH statement, 15 August, 2019

And Dr Fiona Bisshop, one of AusPATH’s board members, tweeted:

Let me go on the public record in condemning @australian and their journalists for their appalling fearmongering and refusal to acknowledge proper expert advice on supportive treatment for trans children. - Twitter, @DrFionaBisshop, 12 August, 2019

So, did The Australian talk to any transgender children or their parents, who could give first-hand experience of what it’s like to feel you’ve been born in the wrong body?

Answer, no. Apart from Dean, who told The Australian he regretted having transitioned to be Andrea.

But one parent emailed us to say:

I am feeling desperate and devastated today. We have a 9 year-old daughter who was assigned male at birth and transitioned when she was 7 years old. This week we have been bombarded by outright harassment from The Australian. A series of articles seem to be overtly trying to demonise transgender people -- especially children. - Email, Parent to Media Watch, 12 August, 2019

The Australian could find no space for voices like that on its new page, or for 16-year-old Isabelle Langley, who sent this eloquent video to the Victorian Parliament this month urging them to change the state’s birth certificate laws:

ISABELLE LANGLEY: I’m currently 16 and I’m also in Year 10. I live in rural Victoria and I also happen to be transgender. - Twitter, @IsabelleLangl17, 11 August, 2019

Isabelle would appear to be much like any other caring, articulate 16-year-old. But if you confined your reading to The Australian’s gender page you would never guess that people like her could be just like everyone else.

And that’s one reason why it is such bad journalism.

So what does The Australian say in its defence? It told us in a statement:

The Australian seeks at all times to provide balance and to obtain diverse views. We consider it correct to report legitimate questions raised by someone whose professional qualifications are in the same general domain as the practice under scrutiny - the health of children and adolescents … The Australian’s reports have led to Health Minister Greg Hunt referring concerns to the Royal Australasian College of Practitioners for a national inquiry. - Email, John Lehmann, Editor, The Australian, 19 August, 2019

Well, let’s just hope it’s a little less one-sided than The Australian’s coverage. In fact, we’re sure it will be.





Read the response from John Lehmann, Editor of The Australian, here.