25. 10. 2004

Gay organisation criticises “scandalous” media treatment

NOVI SAD, October 25, 2004 (SRNA) – Belgrade’s Labris organisation for the defence of gay rights has criticised what it describes as unfair and scandalous treatment of the gay population in the media. “Sensational articles about the gay population of Serbia-Montenegro are merely a way to increase circulation,” Labris said in its statement presenting the results of an analysis of writing from seven daily newspapers and two weeklies. The analysis covers the past six months. According to the Labris report, a fifth of the articles explicitly present the gay population in a bad light. “The negative context of these articles is extremely damaging while the positive ones are merely positive. This only increases the effect of the negativity,” said the organisation at the seminar “Media and Same-Sex Orientation,” which it staged in Novi Sad at the weekend. Labris activists claim that seventy per cent of articles about gay people are printed in columns with titles such as “World”, “Entertainment” and “Tit Bits”. “Only in four per cent of cases are gay topics printed in columns relating to economics of sport,” the seminar heard.