With globalisation, domestic monopolies may have to
face the winds of foreign competition. Singapore's banking sector is being
opened up. Our power utilities are being restructured. Our media monopolies are
being restructured too, though in a rather curious way. There's going to be
competition, but carefully arranged by the government. One suspects there will
be no liberalisation from the party line.
The SPH Group, which hitherto has had the press monopoly, has been allowed to
launch a television station. This is to create competition for the Mediacorp
Group, which has hitherto had all TV stations under its wing. Mediacorp, in
return, has been allowed to launch a newspaper. It's called 'Today'.
If you read the columns or watch the TV news, you'll get the impression that
these are exciting times. But Singaporeans aren't that credulous. They know that
the government is the controlling shareholder of both SPH and Mediacorp.
A respected journalist from the Straits Times put it very succinctly a year
ago, just before SPH's online newspaper Project Eyeball was launched. In a
private conversation -- that's why I won't name her -- she said, dismissively,
"The style may be different, but the boundaries, the boundaries remain the
same."
Yet, it is possible that things can get a little more nuanced with time. As
minor newspapers, Today, The New Paper, Project Eyeball and Streats may get a
bit more wiggle room. Unlike the Straits Times, which is proud of its claim to
be the establishment newspaper, the minor papers may not have to always represent Wisdom in
their columns.
Or maybe they do. Only time will tell. We need to watch carefully before we
draw any conclusions. Borderline news stories provide interesting test cases.
How do the various media handle them?
* * * * *
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By coincidence, both my father and I first saw it on the BBC news website. It
was about Netherlands' first official gay wedding. See box for the text, click
this link for the BBC article and pictures:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1253000/1253754.stm
I
had known for months before, perhaps years, that the Netherlands were
moving in that direction. To me it wasn't big news anymore, so after
reading the BBC story, I forgot about the whole thing.
It was my father who told me about it again, on April 3. He said,
while I was having lunch with him, "Boy, " – yes, he still
calls me 'Boy' – "you know, gays can get married in Holland. I
saw it on the BBC."
"The internet BBC?" I asked him. I didn't think he had
cable, so he couldn't have seen it on BBC World Television.
"Yes, the internet."
"What a coincidence," I said, "I saw that report
too."
"Ah," he went on -- and I know that tone very well, a sure
sign that he had one up on me -- "but did you know that the 'Today'
newspaper had a picture?"
I had to concede defeat. I didn't know that.
"I cut it out for you!" he said victoriously, then went to
his desk, rummaged through heaps of newspaper cuttings and fished it
out. Indeed, it had a colour picture of the beaming newly-weds cutting a
cake and a caption that said,
Here's a Different
kind of wedding
AMSTERDAM. Brimming with good cheer. two
lesbian brides and six gay grooms became the world's first homosexuals
to wed legally minutes after a Dutch law came into force allowing same
sex matrimony.
Cutting the cake are newly weds from left.
Mr. Peter Lemke, Mr. Frank Wittebrood. Mr. Tom Jansen. Mr. Louis
Rogmans, Ms Helene Faasen,. Ms Anne Marie Thus, Mr. Dolf Pasker and
Mr. Geert Kasteel -- Reuter
I must say I was pleasantly surprised. I hadn't seen any report in
the Straits Times, even though it typically has 4 to 6 pages devoted to
world news (which term means news from outside East Asia). I was sure
that I had read the Straits Times every day through those few days, and I doubted if
I could have missed it. Just to be certain, I asked around some friends. No
one saw anything in the Straits Times about the Amsterdam weddings
either.
The main Chinese-language newspaper is Lianhe Zaobao. Like the main
English newspaper, it is careful about its reputation as a serious
paper. But unlike the Straits Times, it seems, once again, less knotted
up about homosexuality. This is what my friend Russell said in email:
"LHZB's coverage was on page 2 with [a] big picture. Straight
news reporting and no aspersions cast at all. So I have no quarrel with
their article. In fact, I think for them to put it on page 2 with a big
picture was pretty positive."
I heard nothing about any report in the tabloid New Paper. I tried to
search its electronic archives, but, frankly, they are hopeless. The
links to the story index kept on pointing back to the current edition. I
gave up after 15 minutes.
The archives of Project Eyeball appeared better organised and
searchable, but I found nothing. They probably didn't carry the story.
As for Streats, I didn't even think to check it. After all, it is a
free tabloid that prides itself on its daily picture of its weathergirl,
dressed to indicate whether its going to be rain or shine, the nearest
we in Singapore will get to a Page 3 Nude, that proven marketing tactic.
Are we supposed to take it for a serious newspaper? Then again, it's
probably my prejudice showing.
Hence, it came as a surprise to learn a week later that it had
carried the story. More than that, one of its journalists didn't think
it carried the story well and wrote a column about it. And it got
printed too!
Streats, 4 April 2001:
The Love That Dare Not
Speak Its Name
by Adeline Woon
When I pulled from the foreign
wires a story on Dutch gay couples being allowed to legally marry, my colleague
doubted its suitability for the pages of Streats.
It promotes wrong values, she
said.
Splash it too big, and I agree,
our coverage would become a nice juicy bone for the media watchdog to chew on.
In the end, it was tucked
inconspicuously away at the bottom of a Global page (Streats, April 2) - a
four-paragraph filler on how four Dutch couples made legal history by being the
first to exchange vows in the first same-sex marriage in any country.
No mention of the joyful
celebration resplendent with pink roses, pink champagne, a pink cake and the
convoy of Volkswagen Beetles the wedding parties arrived in.
Nor of the protesters they passed
on their way to City Hall - a handful of people who displayed a banner exhorting
them to "return to the Lord".
The legal landmark didn't get a
mention in the daily broadsheet. But a colour picture of the Miss Tiffany
pageant for transsexuals and transvestites did. Perhaps it provided more gawk
material.
Do eight people have wrong values
when they make a firm and public commitment to the ones they love?
One couple, Louis Rogman and
George Jansen, has been together for 36 years. Not many heterosexual marriages
last half as long.
Do values that are normally
acceptable become wrong when same-sex couples are involved, and hence, mad, bad
and dangerous?
In Virtually Normal, Andrew
Sullivan wrote that far from being a radical step, gay marriage is a
"profoundly humanising, traditionalising step".
It validates the right of two
people to live and to love, as simple as that.
Heterosexual marriage cannot be
in any danger from homosexual marriage. Gay unions offer less threat to straight
ones than prostitution, adultery, domestic violence and divorce.
Gay unions do and will exist,
whether or not they are recognised as legal marriages. When troth was not
plighted, "for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health"
becomes a shining example of commitment, all the more in the absence of a formal
vow.
Just a fortnight before the four
Dutch couples made legal history in Amsterdam, the partner of a woman who was
mauled to death by a dog spoke up for rights legislation in California, reported
the San Francisco Chronicle.
Diane Whippple was attacked and
killed in the hallway outside her apartment in January by two Presa Canario
mastiff mixed breeds her next door neighbours were caring for.
If Ms Whipple's partner was a
man, he could have filed a suit for wrongful death.
But Sharon Smith is a woman. A
woman who has lost her partner of seven years in a horrific incident.
"Current law makes my
relationship invisible," she said, close to tears, before a state assembly
committee that met to approve a bill to expand the rights of domestic partners.
People who love, live and lose.
Perhaps we should stop looking at gender. And start looking at people.
* * * * *
What about TV?
I asked around my circle about the English language TV stations, that is,
Channel 5 and ChannelNewsAsia. The few who
said they watch television, told me they didn't see any report either. This may
not be a reliable gauge. I have noticed that my friends are watching less and
less television nowadays. They might easily have missed it.
As for the Chinese-language Channel 8, I didn't have to ask. From SiGNeL,
Singapore's gay email list, came this exasperated posting:
"Did
anyone watch the 6.30pm news on TCS8 last night? After reporting on the
legalization of same-sex marriage in Netherlands the reporter commented that
homosexuality was not normal and same-sex marriage might cause more cases of
AIDS. If you did, please write in to protest. I just sent in mine and
requested them to make appropriate corrections tonight in the 6.30pm news.
They will not do that I am sure. I have also sent in comments to Zaobao but
again I do not expect to see it printed. A letter I sent last year did not see
the light of the day."
* * * * *
Media liberalisation, if indeed this is what's
happening, will mean more of such differing slants. It's a hopeful beginning.
However, I still don't expect the various
titles and TV stations to be given any leeway when it comes to local politics,
since our government still believes in their monopoly of power. As the
journalist said to me, "The style may be different, but the boundaries, the boundaries remain the
same." 
© Yawning Bread
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Internet BBC news:
Sunday, 1 April, 2001, 00:44 GMT 01:44
Dutch gay couples exchange vows
Four gay couples have exchanged wedding
vows in Amsterdam's City Hall under a new Dutch law that recognises their civil marriage. The
legislation grants them the same rights as heterosexual couple,
including the right to adopt children.
International gay rights groups have
welcomed the change as a big step forward. It is part of a
multi-national campaign, which is challenging the traditional
definition of marriage.
The ceremony took place at midnight on
Saturday (2200 GMT), with Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen officiating
at the weddings of the four same-sex couples - three male and
one female. Government ministers were present and it was
broadcast live on national
television.
Liberal attitude
All four couples have cohabited for
several years and the women, Anne-Marie Thus and Helene Faasen,
have a nine-month-old son, born through artificial insemination.
"We are so ordinary, if you saw us
on the street you'd just walk right past us," Anne-Marie
Thus was quoted as saying. "The only thing that's going to
take some getting used to is calling her 'my spouse'," she
said.
The couples were welcomed by applause
from family and supporters as they arrived for the ceremony, but
a handful of demonstrators protested against what they called
the unnatural union.
"We hope these people will chose
to return to the Lord," said Cor de Vries, a 30-year-old
protester.
Both women were dressed in wedding
gowns with long trains, while four of the men wore formal suits
and bow ties, and one couple wore leather.
Burst of applause
Standing around a semi-circular
conference table, the couples held hands as Mayor Cohen went
one-by-one asking if he or she accepted his or her partner as
spouse.
"And now we have the marriage of
two men and two women," Mr Cohen concluded as the packed
meeting hall burst into applause. But all eight newlyweds stood
awkwardly for several minutes, unsure what to do until Mr Cohen
told them that they could congratulate each other, then they
kissed and embraced.
Mr Cohen distributed a ring to each
partner, then asked each to sign a marriage registry.
Liberal attitude
One witness, Philip Vos, remarked on
the momentousness of the occasion: "I'm gay, but even I'm
going to have to get used to this."
The Netherlands has traditionally held
a liberal attitude towards gays, which persists despite
opposition to the new law by religious parties. But the law is
restricted to Dutch nationals, which means foreigners cannot
hope to take advantage of it.
The mass wedding ceremony was promoted
by Henk Krol, editor of Gay Krant magazine, which led the equal
rights campaign.
The Dutch marriages have fuelled
campaigns elsewhere for the recognition of same-sex marriages. |
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