There seems to be some misunderstanding here about our goals, so let me lay it out for you:
This story is not on Flayrah out of a desire to prove that there are bad furries in the world.
This story is here because it is a) about a furry, and b) involves a crime of particular interest to our audience.
We probably would not care if a furry was arrested for, say, drug possession or drunk driving. Such crimes, while perhaps similarly serious in the eyes of the law, are not similarly offensive to furry fans.
The title states the location of the individual and the fact that they were a furry – necessary because otherwise a furry reader would not know why they should read it – the fact of the arrest, and the nature of the accusation. All standard stuff.
Now, other news sites feel this is newsworthy not because the subject is a member of a community they serve, but because a fan of anthropomorphic animals allegedly committed a crime involving sex and animals. (To their credit, some covered the community's concern, while others merely exploited a perceived relation between the topics.)
It is these stories you have a problem with. You're blaming us for enabling them – ironically, by doing our job well – yet you offer no solution other than not to cover stories which are of interest to a sizeable portion of our readership. That other reporters might use such information to make the fandom look bad is not a sufficiently compelling reason not to report it.
The issue is unlikely to be resolved unless you can explain how a public news website can communicate information to its readers without giving the same information to the rest of the world, and how we would justify doing so without looking like we had something to hide. (This seems like a question without a solution to me, but perhaps others have ideas.)
There seems to be some misunderstanding here about our goals, so let me lay it out for you:
This story is not on Flayrah out of a desire to prove that there are bad furries in the world.
This story is here because it is a) about a furry, and b) involves a crime of particular interest to our audience.
We probably would not care if a furry was arrested for, say, drug possession or drunk driving. Such crimes, while perhaps similarly serious in the eyes of the law, are not similarly offensive to furry fans.
The title states the location of the individual and the fact that they were a furry – necessary because otherwise a furry reader would not know why they should read it – the fact of the arrest, and the nature of the accusation. All standard stuff.
Now, other news sites feel this is newsworthy not because the subject is a member of a community they serve, but because a fan of anthropomorphic animals allegedly committed a crime involving sex and animals. (To their credit, some covered the community's concern, while others merely exploited a perceived relation between the topics.)
It is these stories you have a problem with. You're blaming us for enabling them – ironically, by doing our job well – yet you offer no solution other than not to cover stories which are of interest to a sizeable portion of our readership. That other reporters might use such information to make the fandom look bad is not a sufficiently compelling reason not to report it.
The issue is unlikely to be resolved unless you can explain how a public news website can communicate information to its readers without giving the same information to the rest of the world, and how we would justify doing so without looking like we had something to hide. (This seems like a question without a solution to me, but perhaps others have ideas.)