Attitude’s Media Recognition Award: Metro newspaper
By Will Stroude
It has not been a good year for the reporting of LGBT+ issues in the media.
We’ve seen the ignorance (Julia Hartley-Brewer telling Owen Jones that the Orlando massacre wasn’t an attack on gay people), the lack of compassion (the Daily Mail barely even registering Orlando in its print edition) and the outright homophobic (the Mail — again, big surprise — lamenting a “skewed sense of values” over the High Court’s decision on funding PrEP).
Thankfully, there are a few British publications which get it. They understand the damaging impact that lazy, sensationalist and bigoted journalism can have on those in the LGBT+ community exposed to it. For so often getting it right, and for their memorable tribute cover to London’s Orlando vigil this summer, this year’s Media Recognition Award goes to the Metro.
“Not only did it show the rest of world Britain’s support for the grieving US LGBT+ community but also showed the community here that their grief was being heard and the importance of it recognised,” says the newspaper’s showbiz editor, Andrei Harmsworth.
The gay community especially has witnessed the damage media agendas can have. With publications such as Metro leading by example, there is hope that more will come on board in the near future.
Read more about the winners from the Attitude Awards 2016, presented in association with Virgin Holidays, in our special November issue, which comes with six different covers featuring the night’s biggest winners.
It’s available to download from 11pm tonight at pocketmags.com/attitude and available in shops from Wednesday (October 12). You can order the cover of your choice from 10am on Tuesday (October 11) at newsstand.co.uk.
