Jumping the gun

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

And now to a storm of indignation yes another one over on Sky News:
RITA PANAHI: … a 13-year-old transgender student, that is a male who claims to be female, has prompted outrage from parents at a private Catholic School in South Australia after breaking a number of records by huge margins …
- The Rita Panahi Show, Sky News Australia, 11 May 2025
A school athletics carnival in South Australia sparked a media frenzy three weeks ago:
BEN FORDHAM: A male-born student has dominated a female school athletics competition, it's happened at a sports day at a Catholic school in South Australia. A 13-year-old student broke several records and won most of the events …
- Ben Fordham Live, 2GB, 12 May 2025
A transgender child smashing records and robbing other kids of their chance at glory on the athletics field? Well it lit up the airwaves for days:
PETA CREDLIN: Senator, you know, how on earth is this fair?
LEAH BLYTH: It's a great question and something that I ask myself …
- Credlin, Sky News Australia, 13 May 2025
The furore was sparked by a news.com.au scoop from intrepid reporter Frank Chung and on the Monday morning the Adelaide Advertiser splashed it all over page one with the school sports day outrage spilling onto page five:
… a transgender student broke a number of records competing against girls at a recent sports day …
'... (they) were breaking all the girls' records,' said one father …
- News.com.au, 10 May 2025
The story also published in The Daily Telegraph, The Courier-Mail and The Toowoomba Chronicle prompted a deluge from professional commentators
like this little piece of compassion from former Liberal MP Gary Hardgrave:
GARY HARDGRAVE: In the end, weak men want to compete against women. And they put on the skirt and say 'I'm a woman now' and I want to compete against you. But even weaker men support those people in that kind of decision.
- Danica and James, Sky News Australia, 11 May 2025
The controversy dominated Adelaide radio all that day:
DAVID PENBERTHY: … it's actually unfair on the boy who's now a girl or now says that they're a girl or whatever their status is. I actually think the parents of that child should have rethought the way they approach this.
- Breakfast with David & Will, 5AA, 12 May 2025
Even the ABC considered it a legitimate story bringing on the South Australian Education Minister to answer some questions:
JULES SCHILLER: Obviously, you know, the priority here is to protect, you know, a 13-year-old who's in a delicate situation, you would imagine.
BLAIR BOYER: Yes, absolutely.
JULES SCHILLER: But do you also accept if they are breaking records and they end up in the paper, then that doesn't seem to be, it seems to be putting them at risk …
- Breakfast with Sonya Feldhoff and Jules Schiller, ABC Radio Adelaide, 12 May 2025
Five days later David Penberthy was back dipping into the outrage once more this time in the pages of The Australian:
What should have been a happy, uncontroversial sports day at a Catholic school has become a flashpoint … The student broke longstanding girls' records …
- The Weekend Australian, 17-18 May 2025
The child at the centre of the story was not identified by news.com.au, The Advertiser or The Australian.
As you'll see however, that was the absolute limit of professional responsibility displayed by these publishers before they went to print because none of them even spoke with the child's family, which is something we did last week:
No child or family should have to experience the trauma or fear that we have been through … my child's privacy and innocence has been violated without consideration or empathy for the devastating, lifelong harm this can cause.
- Email, Mother of student, 30 May 2025
The mother of this 13-year-old child told us the media's impact on their lives has been profound:
It's hard to express how horrific it is to read hateful articles about your child and have them used as clickbait for a political agenda created by adults and forced down the throats of kids who are just trying to be kids.
- Email, Mother of student, 30 May 2025
And was the story even accurate? Answer, no.
The media reported incorrect and exaggerated claims about my child, who only broke one and not multiple records in last year's school athletics carnival. It was another girl who broke seven records …
- Email, Mother of student, 30 May 2025
That's right, the very premise of this story and all the subsequent outrage was wrong. This transgender girl did win some races but broke only one record in 2024 and one in 2025.
There was however, another student who smashed seven records at the 2024 carnival who happened not to be transgender. The mother also told us that when she saw the article she called The Advertiser to have it pulled offline but the paper told her the story had already gone viral.
One hour later the paper changed its mind and pulled the online item, which amounted to very little because it remained on other News Corp websites.
Then when the mother got wind that David Penberthy was writing his update for The Australian she gave him a call too:
I asked him not to publish his story. He said it had already been submitted but he offered to interview me for a follow up story.
- Email, Mother of student, 30 May 2025
Now, I wonder what possible reason she had not to take up his generous offer.
Penberthy insisted to Media Watch his was a legitimate story and said he had tried to address the mother's concerns by having comments disabled from his article.
And as for why The Australian had failed to publish a correction?
… until now I did not know that she wanted one. If she does want one I will take that up with the editors.
- Email, David Penberthy, 30 May 2025
That's right, no corrections at The Australian without a formal application first!
After we contacted News Corp however, news.com.au published a correction and an apology and Sky News said it had removed its segments from the internet.
There is a real and legitimate debate about transgender athletes competing in sport, but this had none of that legitimacy because at the heart of this error-riddled story was let's not forget a 13-year-old child whose family was never contacted but was rather trampled upon by a media stampede falling over itself to voice outrage.
It was so irresponsible as to be breathtaking.