Angry in the Great White North

To start, I can summarize the coverage in this way:

The National Post: Bill C-38 was the only news of the day.

The Globe and Mail: Bill C-38 was the most important news of the day.

The Toronto Star: Bill C-38 was news.

The Toronto Sun: Bikini-clad Indy Babes!

Taking them in reverse order, the Toronto Sun's cover had a photo frolicking contestants for the title of Miss Toronto Indy. The top headline was about Karla Homolka. I was wondering if I had the right paper, what with this focus on law and order and on pleasing the red-blooded heterosexual male readership, but in a small box appeared "We Do: MPs OK gay marriage", directing the reader to an inside spread carrying the headline "MPs say yes to gay marriage; Harper angry as bill passes Commons 158-133".

The message the Sun seemed to be sending was this was not the end of the world. Same-sex marriage might be legal, but that doesn't mean bikini babes were not. The news coverage on C-38 by Kathleen Harris covered the bases: some history, the emotional quality of the debate, cheers from supporters and warning from opponents.

The Toronto Star, of all the dailies, was the most suspicious of the future. The front-page headline (though not the top headline), "Same-sex bill gets final approval" seemed inncocuous, but the piece spoke immediately of bitter divisions, and predicted months and even years before those divisions would be healed. The article then flips between comments between supporters and opponents, which is different from the structure of the articles of the other dailies, which gave ink to the supporters first, then opponents in the latter half of the article. Clearly the Toronto Star did not want reader to stop reading half-way through the article and never hear from C-38 opponents.

The Globe and Mail had the headline with the most editorial quality: "Same-sex bill finally passes". The addition of the word "finally" gives this headlining story the flavour of almost tired satisfaction. The story itself was similar to the Star and the Sun, but with more emphasis on the reactions of various MPs .

The National Post had the most interesting, wittiest, and probably fairest headline: "For Better or For Worse". The entire front page of the Post was dedicated to the story, with the main news piece by Tim Naumetz, flanked by two level-headed editorials, the pro by Andrew Coyne and the con by Father Raymond J. De Souza. The coverage of the story did not deviate significantly from the others, nor would one expect it to -- after all, everyone is describing the same events. One significant addition is noteworthy, though. Not mentioned in any of the other dailies was this fact: since same-sex marriage became legal in the province of Ontario, 3,000 homosexual couples have been married, of whom 1,000 were Americans, a reminder that this story is not over.