Pink News

Pink News is an online magazine written by and for homosexuals that advocates the homosexual agenda. It is not noted for factual reliability or objective balance in its reporting. It has frequently engaged in libelous attacks against those who oppose the homosexual agenda, inciting hysteria, and hostile and criminal behavior (including death threats) by its readers against the targets of the magazine's attacks (all noted below). Pink News is not affiliated to the UK Press Standards Organisation and has never signed up to the Editor’s Code of Practice, which requires editors to take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of what they print, and withdraw false or grossly offensive content.

It has been called "the gay gutter press" by leftwing journalist Julie Bindel. According to TV science producer Malcolm Clark, Pink News "routinely defames and misrepresents".

Defamatory

Pink News has twice been found to have printed defamatory material. In 2019 they had to settle out of court after publishing an inaccurate article about Joanna Cherry MP (SNP). The case was settled out of court and Pink News had to publish an apology, and pay financial damages and Ms Cherry's legal costs.

In October 2021 Pink News was compelled to pay compensation to the journalist Julie Bindel for slandering and misrepresenting her. The magazine was forced to take down the article and had to pay Bindel's legal costs.

Misleading

Compare these two photographs. The first is a genuine picture taken in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1941, and preserved in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The second is a version of the same photograph photo-shopped with pink triangles, featured in Pink News and other highly unreliable LGBT websites, to convince readers that it was homosexuals, rather than Jews, who were persecuted by the Nazis.

While Pink News claims to represent all homosexuals, it is disliked by many of them, particularly lesbians, who publicly attack it and call it an anti-feminist, male-centered concern. It is widely known by the satirical name "Prick News" and a parody account has recently been set up on Twitter with this name.

Examples of Inaccuracy and Bias

Christian Voice

In 2009, Pink News accused the UK lobby group Christian Voice of advocating the death penalty for homosexuality. This was not true.

David Kato Usule

In 2011, Pink News reported the death of David Kato Usule, the Ugandan homosexual-rights activist, in such a way as to suggest strongly that he had been murdered because of his activism. They portrayed him as a martyr for a noble cause. The facts were very different. Kato was actually killed for behaving as a sexual predator to a much younger man, Sidney Nsubuga Enoch, who did not wish to comply. When locked into the house by Kato and faced with homosexual demands he killed the older man with a hammer. Pink News reported the event in such a way as to reinforced the myth about "homophobia" and claim persecution of homosexuals worldwide.

Defamation of La Manif Pour Tous

In April 2013 Pink News claimed that a man named Wilfred Brujin had been beaten up in Paris for being homosexual, blaming this "homophobic attack" on the pro-family organization La Manif Pour Tous. They backed it up with a shocking picture of a man's bruised face, which was widely copied together with the allegations. They repeated the story several times, each time with the emotive shocking photograph, and used this to claim that there had been a rise in homophobic attacks. In fact La Manif is a completely peaceful movement and police investigation concluded that the incident had no "homophobic" motivation whatsoever. The four people convicted were not in any way connected with La Manif Pour Tous. Nevertheless, Pink News refused to withdraw its accusations or to apologize for the affront to LMPT.

In April 2013, Pink News reported that there had been an attack on a "gay bar" in Lille, France, and suggested that the pro-family movement La Manif Pour Tous were to blame. In fact, the incident consisted of nothing but three men going into a bar during normal opening hours, ordering drinks and getting into a drunken tussle. The management claimed they had used terms of "homophobic" abuse but the suspects charged always denied it. Nobody was injured and none of the suspects had any links with any pro-family group. A special lawyer was appointed by Lesbian and Gay Pride Lille, and as a result of their allegations of "hate crime" the three men were given a one-year sentence. The mainstream press in France pointed out that this was excessive, but Pink News never retracted or apologized for smearing La Manif Pour Tous

Defamation of Norman Tebbit

In 2013, Pink News accused the retired Conservative minister Norman Tebbit of "homophobia", for saying that the late Jimmy Savile, posthumously exposed as a pedophile, looked to him like a homosexual. They demanded an apology. Evidence that came to light soon afterwards confirmed that Savile had a long-standing homosexual relationship with another prolific UK pedophile, Peter Jaconelli. Investigators have now concluded that about 20% of Savile's victims were boys. Pink News has not apologized.

Richard Kennedy case

In February 2014, Pink News reported that Richard Kennedy, a homosexual drama student in Preston, England, had suffered a horrific attack and had his teeth smashed in. They published a shocking photograph of his injured face with the headline that it was an "alleged homophobic attack". Richard had placed this picture on his Facebook page with the caption ‘An example [of] why homophobia is wrong and it’s disgusting that it’s still around in 2014′. And he told Preston police he had been “savagely beaten” by several people who had subjected him to "homophobic abuse". They followed it up with another article repeating the allegation that there had been a "homophobic attack" and featuring even more graphic photographs. Shortly afterwards, the police stated that they had found CCTV footage revealing that Richard Kennedy had received his injuries by falling over, and had never been beaten up by anybody. There would be no further investigation. Nevertheless, Pink News went on to publish a third article about Richard Kennedy in which he insisted that he had not lied to the police and had genuinely been under the impression that he was beaten up. Many of their readers went on asserting that there must have been a "homophobic" attack. Kennedy was not charged with wasting police time although many others are charged under that law.

Brian Golec case

In February 2015, Pink News reported that a man in Ohio had been charged with murdering his transgender "daughter", Brian Golec. A friend of the murdered man later explained that Golec was not transgender, but was murdered by his heroin addicted father after a quarrel that had nothing to do with his sexuality or gender identity.

Elton John

In September 2015, Pink News announced that Elton John had been invited to discuss laws regarding homosexuality in Russia with Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation. Pink News even featured a mocked-up picture of the meeting. However the invitation turned out to have been a hoax.

Piers Morgan

In 2017, Pink News turned hostile to the TV presenter Piers Morgan who had questioned transgender theories in a TV interview. Morgan asked "If you can basically come in and say, 'I'm not a boy or girl anymore,' what else can you say you're not?" He went on to comment on the rise in transgender ideas among young children and said that they were catching such ideas by suggestion, or "contagion". Pink News reported that Morgan had "called the children a contagion", slyly twisting what he had actually said, and accused him of "attacking" the transgender couple because he had disagreed with them and challenged their ideas.

Gary Dean

In January 2018, Pink News ran an article calling for a male criminal named Gary Dean to be transferred to a women's prison because he had decided at the age of 50 to "identify" as a woman and change his name to "Marie". It described him as a burglar, and said nothing about the fact that he had more than 30 convictions as a sex offender against women, and another one for assaulting three policemen. The risk of placing him in a women's prison was concealed. Pink News included a link to a petition readers could sign in favor of Dean's transfer.

Graham Lineham

In 2018 Pink News published a series of very hostile articles about people who attempted to take part in the UK government's public consultation about gender self-identification. They presented anybody who did not support gender self-ID as a villain. In December 2018, they ran an article denouncing the scriptwriter Graham Linehan who had expressed a politely gender-critical view, and claimed that he had "come under fire" for his views. In fact the vast majority of people agree with Linehan but Pink News wanted to portray him as unpopular. It claimed that he had "called transpeople Nazis". This was a misquotation, and Linehan made a public statement in a video pointing out its inaccuracy. He said that the inaccuracy had been repeated in Metro and the Independent at the behest of Pink News journalists, who were "vindictive" and would stop at nothing.

Allison Bailey

In May 2022, "Pink News" reporting on the discrimination tribunal case brought by barrister Allison Bailey against her chambers and StonewallUK, claimed that Bailey had turned down work during the period when she alleged she had been kept out of work because of her gender-critical views. In fact, as Bailey's lawyer pointed out, the work she turned down in this period was low-paid work, and she was being denied the more highly paid work she usually did, in line with her expertise and experience. Bailey eventually won her case.

Bullying Campaigns Against Private Individuals

In December 2015 Pink News ran a series of articles about a mother in London who had objected to her daughters being forced to participate in an "LGBT Week" at school. The girls, pupils at King Solomon High School in Ilford, London were told that if they refused to wear the badge of the LGBT movement, and publicly endorse its agenda, they would be put in detention. The pupils were given materials that promoted unnatural, unhealthy deviant behavior and promiscuity along with somewhat amateurish dubious versions of history. The Nazi Ernst Rohm was one of those glorified in the teaching materials for being homosexual. The mother, Mrs Anna Erickson-Hull, a Christian, objected. She mentioned the badge incident on her Facebook page, and the information was used by Pink News to launch a global bullying campaign against her and her family. They branded her a "homophobe" and a "bigot" and accused her of somehow "attacking" other people by simply asserting her right not to participate. They misquoted her and used all the resources of overblown rhetoric to launch a full-scale witch-hunt against her, even stealing her family photographs from Facebook and featuring them to make her a target of personal violence.

For the next month, Mrs Erickson-Hull and her children were bombarded with thousands of obscene, threatening, viciously insulting messages from homosexuals all over the world. They accused her of attacking or being responsible for attacks on homosexuals and sent her death threats, or told her she deserved to be raped, beaten up, gassed or pushed off a cliff. They expressed this in every possible term of crude, scatological, anatomical and illiterate abuse. They sent her and her children obscene pornographic pictures of a disgusting kind. They harassed her with aggressive telephone calls at her home and contacted her employer and demanded that she be summarily dismissed from her job because she had committed the "crime" of offending the "gay community". All of this is of course quite common for the average homosexual bullying campaign, and only pathological by the standards of normal people.

One of the things the Pink News readers did was to set up a special Facebook page in which Mrs Erickson-Hull and her children were subjected to lies, abuse and insult. They stole her private photographs and included the children in their invective and death-threats.

The UK police never intervened, even when the Erickson-Hull family started getting threats to their safety at their home. Eventually in 2016, the whole family had to leave England and have lived abroad ever since.

This is only one of many such examples. Pink News always denies that it is in any way responsible for the behavior it incites.

Connections with Pedophilia

In 2007 Pink News appointed Jacob Breslow, an academic whose career has been devoted to justifying pedophilia, as a staff writer. They published an article by him entitled “My journey from scared teen to gay activist”.

In August 2017, Pink News ran an article about Prince George the four-year-old great-grandson of Queen Elizabeth II entitled "“People think Prince George looks fabulous in this new photo" and suggested that he was a "gay icon". The comments generated in the magazine and on social media left no doubt that there are a large number of pedophiles among Pink News readers. One UK newspaper wrote "AN LGBT news outlet’s labelling of four-year-old Prince George as a ‘gay icon’ has caused national outrage, with politicians and members of the public branding the piece as ‘sickening’. One British MP said "Sexualising a young child in this fashion is entirely inappropriate...To take an image of a little boy and to fantasise of him being an icon for a life defined by sex is outrageous and sick."

Pink News refused to apologize, retract or remove the article from the website.

Connections with Incest

In March 2018 Pink News ran an article defending incest, entitled “Why can’t gay or lesbian twins have sex with or marry each other? Why is incest wrong between same-sex siblings?” The article ends by offering links to “twincest: the gay twin porn fetish” on porn websites.

Unpopularity with Lesbians

Pink News is unpopular with lesbians for many reasons, including its condoning of pornography and advocacy of transgender ideology, which is vigorously opposed by many radical feminists and lesbians. Those who refuse to recognize transgendered men as women and continue to argue and campaign for the preservation of separate female facilities and female-only sports events, have dubbed the magazine "Penis News" or "Prick News" and recent Twitter comments on it include these.

@mayday4women Mar 15 More MAYDAY 4 WOMEN Retweeted PinkNews Also, notice Penis News avoids any mention of Anne's discussion of lesbianism, despite it being solidly within their journalistic remit. Why?

FeministRoar‏ @FeministRoar Mar 15 Here's a letter being circulated as a template for people wanting to complain to their MP about last night's #waronwomen meeting. It's really stupid. My favourite bit is how calling PinkNews 'Prick News' is hate speech against LGBT people.

Replying to @JessPGlass A mainly female meeting discussing feminism and legislation which will affect women “horrifying”? My, what a lucky sheltered little life you must have led. We’ll be here for you when you start to realise that Prick News is no place for a woman.

1. Sisterhood #FemaleErasure

1 reply 4 retweets 55 likes

Parody account https://twitter.com/PrickNews Prick News@PrickNews The world’s most penis-centric LGBT+ (trans lesbians, gay and bisexual misogynists, transvestites, plus boners) digital publisher. Parody, if that were possible. Globular

Determination to Censor All Other Points of View

In 2018, during the UK government's online consultation about gender self-identification, Pink News denounced all who attempted to campaign against the change, labelling their views hate-speech and "transphobia" which should be silenced by any means. It demanded that Metro newspaper stop running advertisements for a campaign group that opposed the change, effectively silencing anyone who actually wanted to take part in the public consultation. Metro refused to comply with Pink News demands.

Promotion of Transgender Surgery

Pink News has always been an uncritical, one-sided advocate of transgender ideology including the transitioning of children. In 2022, despite massive criticism from homosexuals and de-transitioners, it re-doubled its efforts by launching a campaign called "Pure Trans Joy", applauding young people for having irreversible surgery, including double mastectomies, phalloplasty, orchidectomies, etc. This picture they posted shows a young woman who has has both breasts removed and injects herself with high, dangerous doses of artificial testosterone to achieve masculine looking muscles and body hair. Such treatments end in sterility and debility, as well as frequently causing great pain. It has been noted that the editor of Pink News, Benjamin Cohen, has a partner Dr Anthony James a former GP who is now Chief Operator of Pink News, who is also a trustee of Mermaids the UK group that campaigns for and profits from childhood gender transition.

In September 2022, when scandals led the UK Charity Commission to open an investigation into Mermaids transgender promotion group UK, Pink News continued to deny all the scandals and even to deny that any investigation was taking place. This prompted Levins Solicitors who were handling the complaint to reply publicly on Twitter that Pink News' denial was "simply false".

Toxic Workplace with "Bullying Culture"

Employees and former employees give negative feedback about working on Pink News. On the Glass Door website, out of 26 reviews only 36% of employees would recommend it as a company to work for. Only 19% would recommend its CEO Benjamin Cohen as a boss. Opinions expressed include that Cohen is a "bully", the company has a "Toxic bullying environment" and that its claims of diversity and inclusion are not upheld in practice i.e. it's dominated by white men.

Former employee Benjamin Butterworth wrote on Twitter "When I worked at PinkNews, I was told to have a phone app that tracked my location. I had to work 10 hours a day, with a 30 minute unpaid break, the legal maximum, and the app was required to ensure we didn’t leave the desk for a minute more."

Journalist Robbie Travers wrote "This has been one of the most known “open secrets” in politics & journalism. Everyone “in the know” knew of someone who worked for Pink News who had been subjected to Cohen’s extremely vitriolic bullying & aggressive behaviour. The number of NDAs [Non-Disclosure-Agreements] is extraordinary."

Harmful Environmental Policies

Members of the group Fossil Free Pride held a demonstration against Pink News outside the Lancaster Hotel in London during the Pink News Awards on 18th October 2023, protesting against what they called its " union-busting and fossil fuel sponsors", and alleging that it is making "making big financial losses." The protestors also alleged that there were "shocking testimonies" from former Pink News staff of how it treats employees.