Archives reveal "regular, ranting bigotry about gays" in the pages of the Manchester Evening News

In 1989 the MEN called for an "awful" floral display in Piccadilly Gardens commemorating Stonewall to be "destroyed".

An article in Scene Out magazine, August 1989 issue, describes how a floral tribute in Piccadilly Gardens to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Stonewall (the origin of gay pride), was sprayed with weedkiller by vandals.

It happened after the Manchester Evening News published an article about how the "'Gay-day' flower tribute" sparked "a rumpus."

The display was created by Manchester City Council and carried the slogan "Lesbian and Gay Pride". The MEN reports how a worker in the local offices of the Department of Trade and Industry said it was "disgusting"and "awful".

Two days later in an unhinged editorial "Flower bed degrades city" the MEN suggests that perhaps the city fathers should "order the destruction of the whole blooming thing". In the same issue a news item reports that vandals have already done so, by spraying it.

Scene Out describes the coverage as "yet another attack" on the Lesbian and Gay community by the Manchester Evening News. The editor claimed that the paper was "totally unbiased" in its coverage. However campaigners highlighted one of the MEN's columnists of the time and accused him of "regular, ranting bigotry about gays".

A few months earlier, as plans for the flower bed are first announced the MEN's columnist writes...

There was a protest outside the offices of the MEN on Deansgate (shown in the photo). Paul Fairweather being one who was there. Two of them were invited in to speak to the Deputy Editor after being informed by security that six was considered "a mob".

This will be news to younger readers. But some of us older LGBT people have a long memory. Some will say it's more than 25 years ago. But there are such double standards. The Tories are still slated for Section 28 on a regular basis, while other homophobia from the time has been airbrushed away and despite £250,000 of Heritage Lottery funding having been spent on "LGBT history projects" in recent years.

The Manchester Evening News was always something of a rancid tabloid. In the late nineteenth century it referred to black people as "n*****s" and "darkies", whereas its sister paper The Manchester Guardian (now known as The Guardian) used the term "black" even then.

An example can be found in a collection of articles from the MEN that were published as a book called Criminal Manchester. In one house the journalist finds a black man who has toothache...

Consider too that until 2010 the MEN was owned by the Scott Trust along with The Guardian. It raises questions about the sincerity of publishers and whether self-proclaimed "values" are genuine or just a marketing tactic.

These days the Manchester Evening News poses as a supporter of LGBT people and is a "media partner" to Manchester Pride. But, at the same time, it continues the dirty tricks when it comes to LGBT campaigners who are fighting for lawful rights — such as those surrounding the illegal street closures during that same corporate Manchester Pride. And on that same note where is Councillor Fairweather now?

In its response to our naked streak spoof, MEN owner Trinity Mirror wrote that the paper was "proud of its longstanding support of Manchester Pride". But you can see that, in 1989, as the commmunity organised HIV fundraising jumble sales on Canal Street, and several years after the first pride had taken place in the city, the Manchester Evening News deliberately degraded our community.

Thanks to Archives+ at Manchester Central Library where the Scene Out magazine was found.

---

Factsheet 2022/23

Our 2022 Factsheet (PDF) about Manchester Pride is available. This and factsheets from previous years give all the information you need. Read about your right to access the Gay Village without buying a wristband, history & opinion.

Download the PDF version.

And here it is as two images (handy for sharing on social media): page 1 | page 2

Our factsheet from 2021 is still well-worth a look. It has four pages of facts, gossip and fun. Download it as a PDF here. See our factsheets page for other years.

---

Useful reading

The ruling by the Local Government Ombudsman in April 2015 (PDF). The Ombudsman decided that Manchester City Council had exceeded its powers by mentioning wristbands in a traffic order and that it was unlawful to restrict access to premises (businesses and homes).

---

Minutes of a meeting at Marketing Manchester in November 2002. These show that those present were told they couldn't charge people to enter public streets. However some of them went ahead and did so from 2003 onwards for a decade.

At the meeting were: Manchester City Council, GHT, the LGF (now known as the LGBT Foundation), Marketing Manchester, the organisers of Europride 2003. The advice seems to have come from the police. Yet the police apparently then turned a blind eye...

This document was unearthed at the Library Archives quite recently by a FactsMCR campaigner.

---

The media

Since the ruling by the Local Government Ombudsman in 2015 the media — both LGBT and mainstream — have stayed silent about the decade-long wristband fiddle and your rights. So some people continue to pay unnecessarily.

All your favourites know: GayStarNews, Pink News, Manchester Evening News, The Guardian, BBC and many more. In a letter to us, the BBC defended its journalist right not to report this. The same BBC that championed consumer rights at one time now prefers to cosy up to the civil-rights-infringing Manchester Pride, as a "sponsor" (the BBC says it doesn't give money).

These organisations don't need to lie. They simply ignore an issue completely. Or, they report some of the facts; perhaps popping in just one or two bits they don't like, to add a fake impression of balance. That's how they manipulate opinion in the direction they think it should go.

The veteran ITV reporter John Pilger says that "not reporting" is the most powerful form of censorship.

What else aren't they telling us?