April 2002

OG magazine second time around

    

  

 
Sometime in the early or mid-nineties, The New Paper, an afternoon tabloid, did a scoop alleging that a medical undergraduate posed nude in OG magazine. OG is almost an institution, specialising in top-rate photography featuring delectable East Asian men in various degrees of arousal. I believe the model was featured under the name "Ray".

The medical undergrad denied he was Ray, but it didn't stop the media circus, nor an investigation by the university as to how the immaculate name of that august institution had been stained by a bit of precum. I don't think the results of that investigation was ever published, but it would anyway have been moot. The undergrad skipped his final exams and went abroad.

We don't know if he's back. Unlikely, I think.

Meanwhile Singapore faces a shortage of talent, and is out to attract foreigners to our shores.

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On 5 April 2002, it happened again. The New Paper, acting upon an anonymous email, gave maximum free publicity to allegations that a Temasek Polytechnic student posed for a recent issue of OG magazine.

Presumably, this is part of the Singapore media's responsibility to nation-building. Don't laugh, the media themselves take this task very seriously.

First, let me suggest you read the story as it appeared in The New Paper, before coming back to this article.

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Now that you've read it, I shall mention some issues which crossed my mind.

 
Is the newspaper complicit in defamation?

One fact is not in dispute: it was an anonymous email that started it all. Shouldn't that immediately arouse suspicions about motive? If Singapore Press Holdings (of which The New Paper is one of its titles) has a policy of not publishing letters to the editor written anonymously, how did an anonymous email get front-page coverage?

In the newspaper's own story, it reported Rick Ang, the student, as saying "This is certainly someone trying to sabotage me. I am a victim."

Further on, the story reported, "Rick said he'll be seeking legal advice because he feels that he is being sabotaged and defamed deliberately."

There is more than a whiff of blackmail. The reporter himself unearthed the fact that a modeling agency had a dispute with Rick Ang. Yet, the reporter didn't say whether he asked them if they were the authors of the email, or if he did, he didn't report their reply. Glaring omission. 

The paper strongly featured the student's response to whether it was him who posed nude, yet didn't ask if the agency sent the suspiciously anonymous email. Was this fair treatment?

Finally, by giving the allegations top billing (and adding a question mark to the headline doesn't fool anyone), is the newspaper doing the dirty work for the blackmailer?

 
Copyright

The New Paper included 3 pictures in its story, showing the model, but carefully cropped above the pubis. The pictures had been attached to the email they received. In print they were grainy, though the face could be made out.

 

Scandal!

Scandal is a fascinating window into our own society. That which is considered scandalous is that which lies outside the norms of propriety. To the twitty-brained, the person in the scandal is the object of interest. To the more reflective reader, the society and its knee-jerk mores are the greater objects of interest; the incident itself is often of little significance.

Why is posing nude scandalous? A no-brainer of a question! Because public nudity and its sexual undertones are outside our norms of propriety. But don't stop there. Ask why they are outside the norms. What exactly is wrong with the human body and the human interest in sex?

By the way, propriety, and therefore the grounds for scandal, are not absolute. They shift considerably with time and place. It is always amusing to me to see how people can erupt with righteous apoplexy over something that is ever so moveable.

Once upon a time, to marry for love, in defiance of the patriarch's arranged choice of spouse for you, was scandalous. To abandon your wifely duties, walk out of the matrimonial home, was scandalous, never mind if the mother-in-law was intolerably abusive. To renounce your religion, convert to another, was scandalous. Once upon a time, to whip a servant and lock her in the outdoor latrine for 3 days, as punishment for indiscipline, was not scandalous. Oops, maybe it still isn't.

And in too many countries, politicians and officials accepting bribes still isn't scandalous. Blackmail isn't scandalous. But a poor student, posing for a magazine to earn some money to pay his way through school… front page it is!

 

Does it take great intelligence to suspect that the pictures were scanned from OG magazine? And that they would have been copyrighted? The New Paper might not have scanned the pictures themselves, but they could reasonably have believed them to be stolen property. By publishing the pictures, did the newspaper ignore the risk of copyright violation?

This is a pertinent question regardless of who the model was.

Now, the newspaper could say that the matter was of public interest. Well, not so simple. The story might arguably have been of public interest (though my point about complicity in blackmail still stands), but were the pictures essential to the story, to override respect for copyright?

Would the story have been able to stand whole, without the pictures? In my view, yes. Yawning Bread's archive version of The New Paper's story does not carry the pictures. Was any essence of the story missing because you couldn't see the pictures?

So, why did The New Paper carry the pictures? To increase its titillation factor, to boost sales, I suppose. This mercenary angle undermines any argument about public interest justifying the publication of the emailed pictures.

 
Gay magazine or porn magazine?

The first sentence on the front page said, "S'pore student in gay magazine?" Did it strike you that it could easily have said "porn magazine"? OG is well known for full frontal male nudity, though, as far as I know, it doesn't show sexual acts. Still, it falls into the category of porn (I'm just using the term clinically as a description, I do not pass any value judgement on porn).

Yet the editors didn't say "porn magazine". It said "gay". One could argue that both were applicable. Fair enough, but it still begs the question why they chose "gay". Possibly, "gay" was more scandalous than "porn", therefore more salaciously newsworthy. More likely, however, the editors might have felt that their readers might misunderstand "porn" to mean straight porn.

Be that as it may, the effect of choosing to use "gay" is to further marginalise all gay people. The headline throws an aura of scandal around the word gay, and perpetuates the reflexive connection too many people make between homosexual orientation and lustful immorality. So, here we go again….

* * * * *

Finally, considering the above issues, I pose a simple question: is this responsible journalism?

© Yawning Bread 

 

 

Is Temasek Polytechnic in a dither?

The school has "convened a board of inquiry", according to the report. What is it going to inquire about? I wonder.

The operative clause apparently is "Creating nuisance or bringing disrepute to TP".

I am sure there is no mention of Temasek Polytechnic in OG, not even if Rick Ang, the student, was the model who posed. The one who created the connection, and raised the spectre of disrepute, was the anonymous emailer. And the newspaper for publicising it.

If the tertiary institution thinks that it has a stake in (and a veto over) whatever part-time work its students do, it is too paternalistic for anyone's good, and it also thinks too highly of itself.

Being too paternalistic does our younger generation no good. They shouldn't be taught that they mustn't be enterprising and free-spirited for fear of higher-ups' disapproval.

Nor should the institution think too highly of itself. No reasonable person will ascribe the off-school actions of a 22-year-old to the school. If the school thinks this way, one wonders if it is out of touch with the real world.

 The school should say, "we don't see our reputation at stake here; we're not involved." Better yet, to say, "so what's the problem?" But it takes guts for any governmental institution in Singapore to thumb its nose at immature prudes. We're still looking for our guts.

 

Footnotes

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Addenda

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