FED:Website makes 'Pansy Wong' error

AAP General News (Australia)
12-04-2011
FED:Website makes 'Pansy Wong' error

SYDNEY, Dec 4 AAP - A news website has been forced onto the back foot after running
a headline referring to Senator Penny Wong as "Pansy Wong" in a story about gay marriage.

"PM Julia Gillard and Senator Pansy Wong - a reluctant embrace of an emotive issue;
gay marriage," was the headline posted on the Sunday Telegraph website early on Sunday.

The story was about the ALP voting at its national conference on Saturday in favour
of a motion by Prime Minister Julia Gillard to allow state and federal MPs a conscience
vote on gay marriage.

Reporter Claire Harvey later tweeted that a mistake had been made in which the openly
gay Senator Wong had inadvertantly been given a misnomer.

"A Kiwi-born online ed at the Sunday Tele mistakenly wrote Senator "Pansy Wong" today.

Pansy Wong is a real NZ pollie," she tweeted.

In another post on the microblogging site she wrote: "Genuine mistake. Careful readers
will see we editorialised in favour of gay marriage today. Everyone else stop being sensationalist."

Later the subeditor responsible added in his own tweet "Sorry conspiracy theorists
but the Pansy Wong headline was an honest mistake."

AAP jjs/tab

KEYWORD: LABOR PANSY

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