One of the latest news in the Hong Kong media in the last few days is the “covered up” marriage and divorce of two well known artists. The guy is the second generation of a token music family and the girl is from the super Hong Kong girl group Twins. It has been rumoured for quite a while that they were going out but when someone leaked the information that they were actually married for 4 years and currently in the middle of a divorce, the Hong Kong media completely exploded. Eventually under the pressure of the media and with all the different “versions” of the story, they called a press conference and explained themselves. This is the second time that the Hong Kong media condemned artists for not telling them their marital status and being dishonest to them. Last year it was another super star Andy Lau who got stung by them – at the funeral of his father-in-law.
As a communication graduate who was taught to be a responsible journalist, I can never understand this fuss. I have accepted the fact that nowadays a lot of so called journalists are really not journalists. They are story writers who just write whatever in fashion for them without actually accepting their liability for what they wrote. Journalism is all about selling copies and getting rating today instead of providing a factual and neutral view for readers or audience to judge. I have accepted that. But calling artists liars because they didn’t disclose certain private information to you and then gang up against them, condemning them days after days and weeks after weeks? I am totally baffled by these “journalist” behaviours nowadays.
Certainly they are in a very public business. Entertainment business earns big money from the public. But that doesn’t mean that they have to surrender every single piece of information about them to everyone. A lot of times people said that “you do this business, you accept the consequence”. That is total crap to me as for my understanding; you are responsible to your employers not the general public. If the general public wants to put you on a pedestal, it should not be certain artist’s responsibility to live up to their expectations – especially about their private lives. They can be condemned of being liars if they front an anti-drug campaign but they are junkies themselves. But why is it that whether someone is married or not anyone else’s business?
For me, the most annoying part of this saga is that neither one of them had ever talked about their relationship in the public but then now being crucified for “not talking”. In a recent interview, the girl from Twins even said that she just didn’t talk about things. Whether it’s true or not she knows or if other people know then that’s fine. She doesn’t want to say yes or no to things to feed unnecessary media frenzies. Similarly, the guy had never admitted or denied anything about their “rumoured relationship” in the past 6 years. So calling them liars and condemning them of dishonesty is really beyond my comprehension. Further, if that traitor in their social circle didn’t leak the information to the press, nobody would have even known that ever happened. So why does it matter when it isn’t something that matters to begin with? Is it because the media itself is angry with them because their marriage managed to sneak under their radar for that long? So is this their way of getting back to them and “teach them a lesson”?
The most amusing part of this saga is that they condemn the artists about dishonesty but at the same time composed new stories about things as if suddenly they were sleeping under their bed in the last 4 years. Now I really want to know who the bigger liar here is – the artists who wanted to keep their marriage to themselves or people who wrote untrue stories to sell copies. This kind of blatant and shameless double standard really put me off the Hong Kong media in the recent years. If there is a stone to cast and someone cast the first stone, it is still fine. But in this case, there is no stone to cast at all, but they built a boulder to roll over and knock down others – that’s not on!
I am saying this not because I like those two artists. And to be honest, I am never a fan to either of them. But I just couldn’t believe that the Hong Kong media has gone to that low in their practices while at the same time waving the moral flag in the air calling foul. It is not surprising that a lot of established Hong Kong artists like Maggie Cheung and Faye Wong nowadays prefer to live overseas or away from Hong Kong and just go back to work if they feel like to. Just that magnitude of media intrusion and “judgment” is enough a reason for them to stay away as much as possible.
I know the current frenzy will die away as soon as the Hong Kong media found new targets and move on. But I just really feel for this couple that they even couldn’t grieve their marriage breakdown privately and being pressured to become “responsible” to something that is nobody else but their own business.
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