SAMOA – The decision by one of Samoa’s major newspapers to publish a picture of a transgender woman who died in a suspected suicide has stirred outrage.

A photograph on the front page of the Sunday Samoan – the Sunday edition of the daily Samoa Observer – depicted how she was found at the scene.

The very disturbing picture shows the dead woman hanging from a beam inside a church hall last Friday.

She was named by the paper as Jeanine Tuivaiki, a 20-year-old computer student who was a regular at the Catholic Church of Taufusi.

The Pacific Freedom Forum, a regional media group, said the publication on the front page of such a graphic photo, as well as the story’s tone, showed a shameful failure of standards at the paper.

It also condemned the newspaper’s constant referral to the 20-year-old woman as being male, despite transgender women being a long-accepted part of Samoan culture.

Pacific Freedom Forum spokesperson Jason Brown said the story breached journalism ethics and common decency, adding that responsibility should lie with the newspaper’s management.

There are no suicide reporting laws in Samoa, but Brown said basic ethics should have been taken into consideration, and the story was a case of the Samoa Observer “not thinking it through”.

“The reporter is ordered to get all the facts, and that’s what reporters are paid to do,” Brown said.

“It’s then up to the editor to exercise editorial discretion and show some common decency and show some ethics and not upset family, friends, and the general public further, in what is already a deeply upsetting incident.”

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said he was appalled by the front page, and used it to stress his desire for a media council to provide oversight of the country’s media.

“What the editor of the Observer has shown to Samoa and the world is that he is above any moral or professional obligation to report ethically and responsibly,” Tuilaepa said in a statement.

“Like many others, I was appalled at the front page of the Sunday Observer, showing the lifeless body of a young person with such callousness and disrespect.”

Samoa Observer editor-in-chief Savea Sano Malifa initially said the story had been blown out of proportion, and the newspaper had been given the photo to publish and had spoken to the family.

The photograph had been circulating on Facebook for a week, he said.

He blamed the internet for the widespread criticism the newspaper had received.

“People die all the time. Journalists should go for the truth, and the truth is what we published,” Savea said.

“There was very little response to the story here in Samoa, most of it came from overseas.

“That was where the criticism came from, but here in Samoa it was very little.”

However, the Samoa Observer has since issued an explanation and an apology of sorts to its readers.

Written by editor-in-chief Savea, it said the photograph was placed alongside two other front stories about divisions in Samoa’s religious communities.

He said the suicide appeared to have symbolic meaning.

“Religious division in Samoa had caused violence, painful disunity and suffering,” he said.

“That was how it felt when that photograph showed up. It was a sad sight. But then behind the sadness and the pain was the image of Jesus Christ.

“It was as if Jeanine Tuivaiki was telling Prime Minister Tuilaepa,Pope Francis, and Reverewnd Mauga Motu, to make friends with everyone, and let there be peace.

“That was the inspiration that guided us to put that photo on the paper’s front page. It was never to demean, vilify or denigrate.”

Savea ended by saying: “And so if you’re offended by it still, all we can do is apologise.”

- PNC sources