July 16, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Earlier this month, the BBC reported a stomach-turning story under the headline “Blackpool woman accessed child abuse images in hospital bed.” According to the BBC:
A woman who accessed her “vast” library of child sexual abuse images from her hospital bed has been jailed. Julie Marshall used public wifi to look at some of her 80,000 images as she recovered from a heart attack in August 2017, Preston Crown Court heard[.] … Marshall, who admitted three counts of making indecent images of children, was sentenced to nine months in prison[.] … She was also given a 10-year notification order to sign the sex offenders register and a six-year sexual harm prevention order.
Many media organizations utilize a practice (although none like to admit it) of “burying the lede” — failing to emphasize an important detail of the story. In this case, the BBC has eliminated the lede entirely: what the BBC does not mention once in its entire story is that “Julie Marshall” was once known as John Robert Marshall and is in fact not a woman, but a male. This is a clarifying bit of information.
