The Independent: Decisions, Decisions...

A headline in The Independent last Tuesday caused some consternation by describing the trial of Tory MP Nigel Evans thus: “Tories ‘knew about senior MP’s gay sex assault – but kept it quiet before election’”.

Why, asked a couple of readers, did we think it necessary to include the word “gay” there? An alleged sex assault is an alleged sex assault: the law does not distinguish between male victims and female victims, same-sex or contra-sex incidents. In a case where the alleged targets were women, we would surely not refer in our headline to claims of a ‘straight sex assault’, would we? That, I am afraid, is unarguable. In the final analysis, we made an error of judgement. But the issue is not without nuance.

The primary purposes of a headline are to sum up the crux of the story and to draw the audience into reading more. In this instance, it is a simple fact of the trial that the accused is a man and that his alleged victims are men. By adding “gay” to the headline, we conveyed that information...

Will Gore, deputy managing editor of The Independent, Independent Voices.

Fagburn is slightly confused - but also as they say somewhat 'conflicted' - by this circular argument.
You flag it up as 'gay' because it is newsworthy, and its newsworthy because it is unusual...
Oh, and shouldn't it be 'sexual assaults against men' anyway?

Update: 'The Conservative transport secretary told a young man who accused Nigel Evans of sexual assault that it was a "huge demand" for the alleged victim to demand Evans step down as an MP as punishment, a court has heard...

'[Patrick] McLoughlin said he warned Evans to be very careful in future about who he socialised with and urged him to consider coming out as gay. Asked why, he said: "My thinking was that he had got himself into an awkward situation and it would be best to be open about these sort of things."

The Guardian.