Sky News censors the word ‘gay’ during newspaper review
Sky News appears to have censored the word ‘gay’ during a newspaper review.
During a newspaper review on the Sky News channel, a tweet was displayed about Benjy the bull who was saved from slaughter after his owner thought he was gay, and recently attempted to mate with cows.
Displaying a Daily Mail tweet about Benjy, the programme, presented by Niall Paterson, and which aired on 31 May, starred out the word ‘gay’, so the tweet read: “Benjy the *** bull is actually bisexual!”
Guests on the show were writer Christina Patterson and Times Columnist Matthew Syed.
Benjy the bull from County Mayo was originally facing slaughter last year because he showed more interest in other bulls than in cows.
However, after late Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon stumped up the money to buy him, Benjy was moved to Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norwich, England.
After being castrated, Hillside staff noted that he showed a special interest in some of the cows he was housed with.
A Sky News spokesperson has now responded to say: “Last night some over-zealous auto-moderation software meant the word gay was replaced by asterisks in a tweet that was put on air. This was not a human error and clearly the word gay is not in any way offensive.
“We are currently working on upgrading the system so we can avoid this happening in the future.”
