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Topical posts on this blog
Being Discussed Now
- Boxing Star(4)
- Amanda Knox's mum(5)
- "What I want from my MP is..."(48)
- The teenage girl who was racially abused and tried to kill herself(6)
- The positive side of social work(14)
- Zimbabwe - day 1(2)
- 'My husband deserves the Victoria Cross' - Christina Schmid(11)
- "Who came up with the stupid idea to burgle us?" (21)
- "Imprisoned in my own body" (54)
- Adoption and expenses(14)
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Who cares? You must be dredging the bottom of the flooded pit if this is what you come up with to ask for comments.
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As soon as I heard Victoria's preview slot on the radio talking about a 'fat' model, I thought to myself; 'I bet she's not fat at all'. Now, having seen the photo above, I'm happy to report I was completely right. This woman is NOT fat! Comparing this stunningly beautiful woman with obese people walking the streets is just laughable. It's no wonder girls and young women continue to have issues with their appearance if this is the attitude maintained by the media. Personally, I find images of women who are too thin to be far more concerning than this.
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It's great to see a woman that is of a 'normal' size in a magazine that classes plus size as anything over a UK size 10 or US size 8 but she is not a plus size. Our website is totally catered to those who are above average in size and are happy and healthy in the size they wear, we act as a resource and support system - I do not believe that photographing someone smaller than what is actually classed as plus sized as being any better than displaying someone that is very slim - it will not aid any one into feeling more body confident especially if they read the article and see that she is classed as plus size.
We are all different shapes and sizes and that is what makes life interesting - no one is perfection, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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This is an attractive woman, she has shape, and curves i.e. a FIGURE! Her face is engaging and her smile lovely, what is the concern?
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I wouldn't say she is "plus" size - just healthy! I would be happy for more realistic pictures to appear in magazines. I am sure this kind of image is better for younger girls to compare themselves with than some of the skinny and airbrushed ones normally seen.
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She is beautiful - such a lovely face. She looks happy, alive and like a person you would want to know. Some of the skinny models look so mean and bitchy. Beauty comes from within.
Normal people 'crumple' in the middle when they sit down!
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Fat? No she isn't. Agree with sentiments expressed in comment no. 1.
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Oh dear - what a daft subject for discussion.
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Hooray for all normal women, a long time coming, and lets hope we see more, nice to be in the real world!
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To me her figure is completely normal. She is certainly not overweight. Yes, she has a slight roll on her stomach, but most normal women do! What is not average about this particular lady is that she has a very pretty face. If she were modelling clothes, you wouldn't even notice her middle. The clothes would disguise it in any case. I don't like the bad influence pictures of very thin women is having on young impressionable girls, who think that to be mega thin is OK. Being overweight and being too thin are equally bad for one's health.
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Its about time normal women were featured in magazines like this. As the father of 6 & 8 yr old girls, I am already hearing the older one worrying about being over weight. She is very athletic without a stitch of fat on her, however the peer pressure and advertising in the outside world appears to be having an effect already.
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To refer to this beautiful woman as 'fat' is offensive. This woman is NORMAL. When she stands up, I bet you can't even see her stomach! You try it - look at your stomach when you're standing, then sit down; that is what normally happens!
All you are doing is fuelling the fire of eating disorders in young women who think that they have to look like the typical magazine model.
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I'm a heterosexual male aged 37. I don't buy lads mags, nor do I read women's mags. But I am aware of them.
Lizzie is a very attractive woman. Does her roll of fat detract from her attractiveness? Yes, if I'm honest, but only slightly, and she looks like women in real life look like.
Would I want to see these kind of images in a lads mag? No, actualy. I realise that the women in lads mags bear little resemblance to typical reality, but I expect to see the perfect body in these mags, whilst being fully aware that it's not real. It's the aesthetic beauty of the perfect body that I want to see.
In women's mags, I would imagine the readers would appreciate seeing real women like this, and I think it's very important for young women and girls to see women like this, so as not to aspire to the practically unattainable images they mostly see at the moment in the media.
A balance, realistic, honest, intelligent view, I hope...
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This photo is of a real women who is normal looking in the real world, it's about time that this was recognised by those who do not live in our world.
Dave
Icklesham
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I think this model looks gorgeous compared to the every day sites you see walking around the streets, we need to appreciate this look now because women will become hugely unsightly in the not to distant future.
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The lady has a baby pouch, so what? & the lady is also a beautiful looking women.
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I've had the misfortune to be in my car around 10.00am most days this week, and had to choose for talk radio between Women's Hour on Radio 4, Women's Hour on Radio 5 and inane football chat on TalkSport. VD's show is getting to be a good argument for revoking universal suffrage.
To those women who think this is an issue, it's very simple. If you want to look more like the women in the magazines, eat less and exercise more. If you don't want to eat less and exercise more, get over yourself and accept who you are. You won't find many men fretting about not looking like Brad Pitt. If you don't like the way these magazines make you feel about yourself, don't buy the magazines (and buy something intelligent instead).
Right. Now that's settled, can we talk about something interesting? There are around 200 countries in the world, thousands of years of human history, eternal dilemmas of philosophy, economics, and politics, marvellous technological solutions to problems, etc. And you are telling us that the best thing the BBC can find to talk about is the perpetual neurosis of some women in the rich world as to whether "my bum looks big in this"? Get a new perspective, get a new presenter, get a new production team, or stop taking our money to produce this tripe.
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I ask the nation to take heed of this gorgeous picture of Lizzie because judging by the increasing size of the female form walking the streets Lizzie will soon become a rarity, more pictures please.
ERIK
Northumberland.
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I think we are sending out mixed messages. I don't agree with size zero models, it's unhealthy to be a size zero and it causes eating disorderers. Not only in the models themselves but also in the readers who aspire to be like the models they see.
On the other hand we don't want people to be obese either. It's striking a balance of healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle.
The fashion industry don't use "normal" women in their adverts because statistics show that less sales are achieved by doing so.
This model, Lizzie is pretty but from what I can see she has big legs which are out of proportion to her torso. That is why she has been photographed sitting down.
I'm a professional model, I'm a healthy UK size 10, and in my opinion Lizzie is not model material. Would I buy something Lizzie modelled, probably not.
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This programme gets worse by the day.
There is absolutely no need to highlight this twaddle.
This is a normal woman.
Hadn't you noticed ?
Stop insulting your listeners intelligence.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Re plump women - The outcomes of studies points towards men liking womens features that represent good physical health, less likely of becomming diabetic or infertile. So take the results of a tribe of men who had not been exposed to western media, shown pictures of thin women, they were concerned that the tin women were unhealthy. In some african societies women were sent to so called 'fattening houses'! Plumpness can be seen as being representative of wealth, security, or maybe in our society thinness is representative determination, wealth (being able to afford gym membersgip). The psychological research suggests that many assume that the media can promote things on a gullible public, who then blindly follow. Not so. Waist to hip ratio apears important, but being too thin can put many men off. Gareth Post Grad Psychology Student
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Thanks for the info bgprior.
Explains a great deal.
I've been questioning this programmes unbalanced agenda for a long time.
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.... glad the penny has dropped with someone else.
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how remarkable an afghan woman praising the occupation of her country by foreign troops whilst another 40 innocent fellow countrymen are killed.
even more surprising that her sound bite is used as justification for the illegal war.
gordon brown will say that 75% of the threats to this country have links to that region, (previously note that ministers have said it was from pakistans nwfp and more recently it was afghanistan.
however there is is no evidence in the public domain to justify the claim of 75% , it is merely a claim rather like the claim of wmds in iraq.
even if it was true the figure would not be surprising since 50 to 60% of the muslim population in the uk are from that region of the world and so would have 'links' .
now is there any chance we might get some real debate as to why we would want to occupy afghanistan create destabilisation in paksitan and iran on the foothills of china and russia and the mountains of the oil / gas rich caspian region?
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why is the stomach area of the woman a different shade to the rest of her body ?
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9/11 was planned in germany not afghanistan, they trained in the usa.
hard evidence against bin laden with regard to 9/11 has not been provided at least by the fbi.
the aim of the neo cons is to de nuke pakistan, we are encouraging and harbouring the BLA a terrorist nationalist balochistan org operating out of afghanistan (possibly to break up the country - balochistan has ea ports, gas and oil reserves), we fund the jondallah (via usa) to destabilise iran and the so called pakistan taliban in the nwfp are largely uzbeks and tajiks whose arms are american and indian and who have access to communications equipment that even the pakistan army do not have. they are trained by the indian RAW services.
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Completely agree with the very first comment on this blog. Too often on fivelive these days you wander into the murkier end of the red top's territory. The combination of Smugalas Campbell and Victoria 'and then she said...' Derbyshire is sometimes just too much to take of a morning.
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...and this programme was nominated for a Sony Award ??
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"...and this programme was nominated for a Sony Award ??"
yes a sunsational sony award .. dont know about the prestige of the award in real terms however good advertising for sony though.
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oh what a surprise, same people whinging and whining about the content of the programme and making snide remarks like they do every day. Yes there are big issues around but sometimes its nice to talk about/listen to something else for a change. I wonder why you listen every day as you complain so much...
Great show Victoria!
I think the model looks great. There needs to be a balance in images that are shown, an over skinny image/size zero, is as dangerous as a very overweight image (Beth Ditto from the gossip appearing naked on the cover of the NME for example).
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"Yes there are big issues around but sometimes its nice to talk about/listen to something else for a change."
yes youre right 5live is the best location for the banal.
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so shut up and enjoy it then! ;)
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Hi bgprior,
I'm afraid that staff list is somewhat out of date - five of those people you mention have now moved on to work on other programmes.
I don't see how the issue of staff gender is relevant to the debate, as you say yourself in reference to the Lizzie Miller story there's no such thing as a woman's story.
Over the last week we've reported dozens of stories including football hooliganism, father's rights, the war in Afghanistan, the Lockerbie bomber as well as today's story about the plus size model. I wonder which of those you'd describe as "hug-fests and naval gazing"?
You'll see from the number of comments to the blog that lots of people are interested in discussing the Lizzie Miller photo. That's why we put it on the website, so you could see the picture for yourself.
We're always keen to cover stories from our audience - so if you've got a suggestion for a story please post it here or email victoria@bbc.co.uk.
Yours,
Louisa Compton
Programme Editor.
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To the production team:
Please could you justify your definition of this particular model as "plus size"? What is your definition of a "plus size", and how does Lizzie Miller fit into that definition?
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MadAdaM3........anyone over UK size 10 is classed as "Plus Size".
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by whom?
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By the fashion industry. And it's not my opinion, that is how UK size 12 is classed. Lizzie would technically be a plus size, I'd guess by looking at her she is a 12. That's plus size. Sad but true. But who do you blame, the fashion industry or the people who buy the magazines. If no one bought them it would be a wake up call, but folks buy them and then complain about the content.
Like folks complain about this topic, but they still listen.
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Louisa Compton
I would be extremely interested if you would kindly clarify the names of the production team at present on your show.Is it still the same unequal men/women ratio that was posted earlier ?
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Oh noes! She has a TINY amount of fat on her stomach, the heavens are imploding, the very cosmos is eroding - she is clearly obese! Man the media's perseption of what is fat, slim, pretty, or normal is completely deranged.
This may or may not be considered relevant but this is coming from a 23 year old guy, not a woman, and I can tell you that this woman is gorgeous - there is absolutely nothing wrong with her, she looks natural, normal and pretty, not like the plastic excuses for woman I've become accustomed to seeing on these magazine front covers, more reminiscent of manikins than actual people.
So bluntly: yes, I'd like to see more women like this in what you dub "Women's Magazines" - let's get back in touch with reality and out of touch with celebrities.
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Looks like andy ( shut up and enjoy it then )kong ( Post 33 )
.. is more than a prime example of Victoria's target audience.
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Leonard-Zelig,
You may be interested to hear that this morning's programme team consisted of three women and three men. However, I don't think the gender of our staff is at all relevant. We're all journalists and our job is to make editorial decisions on the stories we report and the way in which we cover them.
Louisa
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Why on earth would anyone in their right mind construct a radio piece around a visual image?
Why are the production team allowed to hide behind anonymity? An absence of accountability scarcely encourages high quality output.
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ok so it's not the best radio ever. but it's good to see a picture of a healthy attractive woman, and not the normal air brushed nonsense the media normally try to portray as normal. most men, myself included find a more shapely figure much more attractive than the head on a stick look. great show!
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you have all gone mad !
The woman is not real.
she is a construct.
Why dont you show a picture of a real person naked.
Why ? Cos that aint news !
And as for the 3 woman and 3 men production team : Where are the pictures of them naked ?
D'ya get my point.
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Where is my 2.33pm and 3.03pm blog ?
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Louisa
Thank for your reply.
Can you give us some names then please ?
The gender of your staff is more than relevant.I believe in any other kind of journalism that is common practice to reveal and name who researched the story.
Does the BBC and 5live see Victoria's prgramme as a special case where the listeners aren't told ?
Some items may be written by and put an angle or slant on by some rabid feminist for all we know.Newspaper columns are always written by someone with a certain agenda but at least they have bottle to put their name to it.
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All this controversy over a picture in a fashion mag.... giving my (male) perspective, for what it is worth, the lady is a peach.
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Fatman you posted on the Breakfast blog which appears to have run the same story.
Thus begging the question - why not consolidate the schedule so that Fogarty and Campbell do the full morning shift (without their double act overlap) but with an inserted news hour break, following that have the news hour back at noon leading into Mayo at One.
VD is surely superfluous to requirements...
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Thanks for the reply Gavin.
Knowledge is power eh ?
I find the use of the image questionable.
It is a postmodern capitalist female construct,real but not REALLY real ( no use value, no exchange value BUT plenty of sign value)a fillip to the women who are overweight(NOT A PERFECT DRESS SIZE etc.)and still a pornographic titillation for the semi-arrested male idiot.
How can you find an image more desirable than the real person ? Because the image is a pornographic market construct !
You reference visual images in your blog.
Isn't the whole point this: the medium is the message. AND if the Radio 5 medium is itself promulgating pornography on its show isn't that the real problem ?
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Frankly, I am tired of hearing comments that complain of the "objectification of women" in one breath, then refer to "men" as a sort of unified entity with a common agenda in the next. Is this type of reference to men not the exact same flavor of objectification being attacked? People need to wake up -- objectification is a precondition for using an idea as part of language. Since the offending ideas are all man-made, of course it is possible to eliminate or change them, but only through a calculated, linguistic approach (for example, elimination of ideas which serve as prerequisites to the offending ideas, just as racism could be eliminated by eliminating the idea of race, an idea equally artificial to that of an ideal body shape for women). But as far as trying to solve the problem through thought processes which involve similar objectification of men -- well, as my dear Granny always said, "Two wrongs don't make a right." These people are slowly and unwittingly perpetuating the problem.
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Except that it's a no brainer that a radio audience can't see the picture - pornographic or not (although I say that picture nothing of the sort).
What is the matter with a production team for RADIO who think that their audience is able, willing or prepared to seek out the relevance of their piece through alternative media carriers.
It's ridiculous.
The assumption that the audience could, would or should seek out an image in this way, demonstrates a complete lack of respect by the production team. A lack of respect for the value of the medium within which they supposedly working and are being paid (by the taxpayer) to work. And a lack of respect for the genuine radio listener.
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ALL ideas and therefore ALL language ( ideas must be facilitated through language )are human constructs.These constructs are based on power relations.It is the master or ruling elite that determine the language that information is conveyed by.(subsistence cultures rely upon an alien elite to facilitate commercial communication )
Objectification is the raison d'etre of commercial capitalism.
The human subject whether male or female under (post)-monopoly capitalism has become an object.An object that can be photographed,copied,re-printed and finally remade in an image that is a simulation of the real.
This process respects no-thing whether male or female.The process uses all of us by 'eliminating' all of our human differentials.
There is no race, no racism ,no white, no black ,because there is NO REAL.
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Agreed -- but we still have the option of being pragmatic. Since the current paradigms don't seem to be working (my conclusion based on the fact that women are not comfortable with their own bodies), the most direct solution is to shift the offending paradigms, first on the level of the individual, who would hopefully be armed with the knowledge that we are artists, free to paint our own realities. Spreading awareness of this fact would ultimately solve many problems, neutralize power relations, and could even make for good radio, depending on how one chooses to define the underlying ideas.
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Louisa,
Thanks for responding.
"I don't see how the issue of staff gender is relevant to the debate"
Here's a clue. Why does Radio 4 have a Woman's Hour but not a Man's Hour?
"Over the last week we've reported dozens of stories including football hooliganism, father's rights, the war in Afghanistan, the Lockerbie bomber as well as today's story about the plus size model. I wonder which of those you'd describe as 'hug-fests and naval gazing'?"
Well, here's the list of current "Topical posts on this blog":
# This Photo Appeared in Glamour Magazine in the US(54)
# The inspiring story of a British 9/11 widow(11)
# A Gay Soldier Speaks Out (51)
# How far have you gone to gain access to your children?(14)
# Who do you believe when it comes to public spending?(32)
# The positive side of social work(12)
# Anonymous until proven guilty?(4)
# Where is British prisoner John Watson?(14)
# Victoria speaks to the Ashes champions(2)
# Negative equity and whistleblowers...(11)
It's not about the topic, it's about how you approach the topic. 9/11 raises many issues, but you chose to focus on one person's experience. The treatment of our soldiers (gay or straight) is a Pandora's box of issues, but you chose to focus on one person's experience. The rights and responsibilities of parents raises all sorts of questions, but you chose to focus on tales of personal experiences. On public spending, "what", "how" and "why" are more important than "who", but I'll concede that the politics of this is significant. When and how the state should intervene in family life are interesting questions, but you chose to make it a propaganda session rather than a debate. You did a decent job of "Anonymous until proven guilty". Was there any issue under debate in the item on John Watson, or was this just a personal story? The Ashes champions - 5Live is going to do a bit of sport, and this is as good as any, but it hardly raises the intellectual calibre of the list. Negative equity - not causes and consequences, but "are you worried"?
In the treatment, rather than the choice of topic, most of these can be categorized as navel-gazing or hug-fests. I am willing to take your assurance that that has nothing to do with the gender-balance of the team, however much it may be tempting to suspect otherwise. It must simply be to do with what you think is right for your audience, then. If so, it's a good example of what George Walden described in The New Elites.
If you were simply meeting market demand, I wouldn't complain. But I am effectively paying tax for you to produce this stuff, and when we compare the amount of commercial talk-radio in this country (only TalkSport) with other countries, it seems clear that you are crowding-out alternatives.
And for as long as we're stuck with a monolithic public provider, I don't object to the BBC providing what the lesser-brained members of the female half of the species want from time to time. But I really don't understand why you'd pitch it against Woman's Hour. As the BBC has two of the three analogue talk stations and five of the six digital talk stations (no crowding-out there, I'm sure), it really ought to be possible to make sure that you aren't emoting and empathising simultaneously on your two main talk stations for those who prefer to engage only the right side of their brain.
"We're always keen to cover stories from our audience - so if you've got a suggestion for a story please post it here or email victoria@bbc.co.uk."
OK. Here's an unordered, stream-of-consciousness list off the top of my head. It's just the tip of an iceberg of subjects that are of more significance than a roll of skin on an attractive woman.
Is gender irrelevant to the way people see things and do their jobs?
How do we strike the balance between the rights of troubled children and the rights of those they might harm?
Why do some parents fail to bring up their children properly? Should they be free to have as many children as they like?
Our welfare system - safety net, ladder or concrete boots? Are long-term dependents lazy, self-destructive or responding to their incentives?
Singapore health system - a model for America and Britain?
Putin claimed moral equivalence between appeasement and the Hitler-Stalin pact. Is he right? Can we trust and do business with a country that worships a man who can stand in Poland and say that?
Many children are reported not to know whose side Poland was on in the war. Is freedom of interpretation more important than learning facts in historical education?
The IMF is lending a large amount of money to Zimbabwe. Should they? And is there any difference between Zimbabwean and British economic policy?
A white South African has been granted asylum in Canada, strikes are increasing, crime is high, and the rand is falling. Is one-party rule heading towards another African failed state?
Drought in Ethiopia again. Should we blame Western governments, African governments, aid policy, climate change, or something else?
Somalian pirates - what would you do if you lived in Somalia? How do you reverse lawlessness without relying on or creating a dictator?
Are the interests of companies whose shares are traded in London the same as British interests? In what way was the return of al-Megrahi in the national interest?
Israel vs Sweden. Free speech or shouting fire in a crowded theatre?
Consecutive EU presidencies embarrassed by domestic politics. Time for an elected EU president, or a different model altogether?
The rise of the former-communists in Saarland and Thuringia. Sign of healthy diversity or troubled times?
France and Germany vs UK and US on financial-service regulation and loose fiscal and monetary policy. Are the dividing lines getting clearer and are we on the right side?
Why are we taking our solutions to the Crash from the people who didn't see it coming, and ignoring the ones who did?
Japanese budget deficit running at 30% of expenditure and national debt heading for 200% of GDP. A model for the rest of us, or disaster in the making?
Are developing economies able to lead us out of recession, or are they built around rich-world demand?
Is consumption the secret to growth and prosperity? Do we need to create more and consume less wealth? Change the type of growth, or stop growing altogether?
Obama - better at justice and politics than economics? Would he have been a better Chief Justice or Speaker? ($2 trillion is a big correction in a short time, especially when it still leaves the projections looking improbable.)
Will power move increasingly to the countries with energy and mineral resources, or are they as much curse as blessing?
Population - should we be more worried about growth or decline?
Is a one-size-fits-all statutory retirement age still justified? Is it enough to increase it by 3 years in the next decades?
Higher education - wasted on the young? Is it just intellectual pick 'n mix without experience and perspective?
Education - should its purpose be to train for employment, or to train and expand the mind?
Is the dominance of Oxbridge graduates in the upper echelons healthy?
Would it be good to have another summer bank holiday?
Microsoft in schools and the public-sector - is government handing them a captive market, or just using the best tools for the job?
The modern arts - innovative and challenging or the emperor's new clothes? Does the arts establishment suppress alternative perspectives?
Is there a difference between higher and lower pleasures, or is pushpin as good as poetry?
How do we know what is right and what is wrong, morally?
Is there such a thing as an absolute truth, or does everything depend on perspective?
Is democracy so good we should export and impose it, or is it the worst system except for all the others that have been tried from time to time? Is it universally applicable, or does its success depend on other conditions?
Are the interventionism, managerialism and corporatism proposed by those who claim that the Crash marked the failure of capitalism (as the fall of the Iron Curtain marked the failure of socialism) a genuine, new alternative, or simply new dressing for what our political establishment has been serving up for over a century?
Wild-fires - part of nature or is their severity the product of human folly? Are they evidence of global warming?
Depletion of water resources - causes and consequences?
Agricultural self-sufficiency - is it possible or desirable for the UK? Would it make us more or less secure?
Complexity - the modern curse?
Are high or rising house prices a good thing or a bad thing?
Should taxes fall more heavily on employment, profits, consumption, assets, externalities or something else?
Is GDP the best measure of growth or economic progress? What alternative measure would be better? Should growth and economic progress be objectives of policy?
Civilization ebbs and flows, but technology always advances? Should we take technological sophistication as a sign that our civilization is more advanced, or have we combined high technology with cultural decline?
The lessons of the Great Crash and Depression for our current circumstances? What did Hoover and Roosevelt really do, and what effect did they have? Examine the myths.
Ditto for Japan's crash and lost decade (and counting).
Ditto for some other bubbles - Tulip, South Sea, Mississippi, Dot-Com, etc.
Is domestic energy in the UK too expensive or too cheap?
Europeans encouraging Africans to plant jatropha - enlightened paternalism or modern groundnut fiasco in the making?
Desertec solar plans - partnership, exploitation, sensible diversification, mad waste of money?
BP's Gulf of Mexico strike - good or bad news (more oil or more greenhouse gases)?
Nuclear troubles in France and Finland - a warning for the UK?
New high-speed rail-links and CrossRail - can we afford them or afford not to build them?
Low-cost airlines cutting, moving (e.g. Manchester, Luton) and closing - part of the natural economic process or sign of a troubled model?
BA's troubles - do we need "national champions"? Are they good or bad for the economy?
EU competition investigation into Oracle/Sun merger (following Intel and Microsoft investigations) - are we justified to intervene to protect competition, and where do we draw the lines?
Proposed file-sharing preventive measures - fair and proportional? to ISPs? to file-sharers?
"Bloodgate" - where is the line between gamesmanship and cheating? Is it worse to fake injury than it is to do something illegal that risks serious injury to an opponent?
Foreign-born players wanting to play for England - national pride or embarrassment?
Why are Met. Office long-range forecasting models less accurate than the climate sceptics' models? And what does that tell us?
Bottled or tap water? Which is better (for you, economically, environmentally, etc)?
Should we protect the Bengal tiger, and if so, how best to do it?
Over-fishing (e.g. blue-fin tuna) - tragedy of the commons, failure of European bureaucracy, or both?
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Louisa
Why don't you get the BBC Trust's Michael Lyons on your programme in a phone in with the general public one morning ?
This chap gets paid enough money but never engages with licence payers and hides himself away somewhere.
The knowledge of a presenter is most important to me.Some certainly lack these qualities on 5live and instead try and get away with this by being on some giant ego trip.
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bgprior (comment no. 55). Absolutely spot on. You've articulated what I (and many others) feel in the most constructive and intelligent way.
For ages (via the now defunct The Station message board then the recently now defunct Radio POV board) several listeners have made the same points - in a nutshell the dumbing-down/touchy-feely nature of the phone-in (and I am female btw).
If I want red-top I'll watch daytime TV.
I want intelligent and informed topics; not Hello magazine type 'stories'.
Unfortunately to offer the phone-in and its topics that you, I and the majority of contributors to this site want would entail a thorough overhaul of the entire production (team and host).
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'stop taking our money to produce this tripe'
exactly!
for goodness sake!
thought I'd come across ITV/Big Brother/OK by mistake
you should be ashamed!
get some real journos on the job; not these navel-gazing ninnies!
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Please give me strength!
Teenage pregnancy, war in Afganistan and the Scottish Football Team. These are the issues on most morally upstanding people's mind's these days (And the price of petrol!)
Would somebody tell me what a beautiful women is??
I'll go for healthy, funny, caring, sensitive, without worrying too much what other's think of her. Underweight or overweight fine, if it's not a health concern for her.
Otherwise the media will show you the route to hell.
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According to the BBC Message Board House Rules, "you will be sent an email informing you why your message has been failed" if it is moderated (http://www.bbc.co.uk/messageboards/newguide/popup_breaking_rules.html). I have received no such email. Perhaps the moderators would like to tell the readers of the Message Board why my message that provided publicly-available information on the gender-balance of VD's team in 2008 was moderated? It's particularly funny, as you have removed the information and point to which Louisa Compton was replying, so she now appears to have been arguing with nothing in particular.
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Message 55 - Brilliant.
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#55 & others who share the same view, I have been telling everyone for at least 3 years that the BBC is NOTHING but a broadcast version of the tabloids. They are in fact competing with The Sun, Daily Mirror maybe even Daily Sport. I used to get upset about it. But now all I want is for the Licence fee to be abolished. Once that is done, the BBC should be free to cover any topic in anyway. I'm just sitting and waiting that it will be soon.
And just to add an item to your list: Can we compare the way the BBC covered the "historic" US elections of 2008 to the "even more historic" Japanese elections of last week? We had weeks & days of "Obama-mania" in 2008. But unless I watched or read elsewhere, I have no idea who the new PM of Japan is or his cabinet and what the policies of the DPJ (party who won) are?
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As you know, at the beginning of each programme, Victoria Derbyshire says "stories from around the UK, and the latest national and international news and sport" or something like that. In other words the programme deals with UK topics.
Therefore the story about a US magazine does n`t belong in the programme. Equally,many of the topics recommended in post no. 55 by BJ Prior should n`t be in the programme either.
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Why were bgpriors ( post 21 ) comments removed, when Louisa replied to them a few posts later ?
Thats weird.
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Coreze, Is that UK topics like "This Photo Appeared in Glamour Magazine in the US"?
If the topic needs to have occurred in the UK, Victoria needs to narrow down her range of topics considerably (Afghanistan and Iraq are out as well, for instance). If the topic merely needs to have been discussed in the UK, or to affect people in the UK, then we can count just about everything in, can't we?
In any case, what sort of logic would it be to let a hazy recollection of an introductory phrase determine what the programme ought and ought not to cover? I think we can credit the VD team with enough initiative to decide the content on more substantial grounds, and to change the introduction if necessary.
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Hi bgprior,
I'm not sure why your original post was taken down - but it's being reinstated as we speak.
Louisa
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
To BG Prior especially. Thanks for your reply to my post.
Specifically, this topic is about a photo in a US magazine, which people in the UK would not see. I say this is not a UK topic. Now you say, what about Afghanistan and Iraq? Yes, People living in Britain serve in these countries and come home to their families. In that respect, it is a British topic
Then you say well just about everything can be a British topic. After all, I agree, we`re all on the same planet. At the beginning of each programme Victoria does say ~`stories from around the UK`
There are some people who just don`t like Victoria Derbyshire`s programme. Here is the evidence to show this. The same topic was covered on Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty`s Breakfast Programme. Now, just take a look at the comments posted on the Breakfast Programme blog and compare them with the comments on Victoria Derbyshire`s blog.See what I mean?
I looked at your list of suggested topics and wondered if it is possible to deduce anything. I am pretty sure that you are not a journalist. Neither am I. Journalists have to try and interest the public the reader, or listener, and one technique is to show an abstract remote subject as personal and relevant to people. Therefore in Victoria`s programme they will have one particular person who is affected by the war in Afghanistan or the National Health service etc. That seems to me what they are trying to do.
Programmes are supposed to provoke discussion.It seems that listeners feel more able to open their hearts to Victoria`s programme, as you have done, than they do to Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty`s programme.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I didn't here the programme myself, being at sea, but now there are plenty of comments I've got the gist of it (allowing for the interjection of wendymanns usual tirades against the west). For a brief moment we were inspired to believe the era of the "normal" model had come and the stick insect was out when Sophie Dahl appeard on billboards throughout the land.
Young Lizzie's simply gorgeous - but I can say that because I'm looking at her as a whole and considering that she is an intelligent, vibrant young lady as well as a nice-looking one with an open face, great smile and pin-sharp eyes. Looks are only skin deep - there's more to true beauty than looks.
Besides, if I want to look at a wasp waist and rack of ribs I'll go down to the greyhound track, thank you very much.
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Oh, I forgot. If wendy's still wondering about the shades of skin tone, it's a one-word answer: lighting.
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Whilst we're talking about girls looking nice or not, like they're some sort of objet d'art or not actually in the same room as us when they are, and on a lighter note, having seen the new masthead head-n-shoulders photo on this page of VD leaning against a tree, our Vic' is quite the looker, n'all!
;-)
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Coreze, There are simpler explanations why people objected to this subject more on VD than on the breakfast programme. Most obviously, they may not have been listening to the breakfast programme. Perhaps they were doing something else at that time.
Importantly, from my perspective, if they are listening to the breakfast programme, it's covering something insubstantial, and they want more "meat", they have an alternative - they can turn over to Today on Radio 4. What really irks me is scheduling this sort of nonsense against Woman's Hour on the two main BBC talk-radio stations. There was nowhere to go if you didn't want chewing gum for the brain. Increasingly, I drive in silence.
As for your comments about the art of journalism, I agree that is probably what VD's team are trying to do. But such personalising and "dumbing down" is not some gold-standard of journalistic practice, but a mark of the times. You should read The New Elites, which I referred to in a previous post.
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"Increasingly, I drive in silence."
I drive with the CD layer on if there's nothing of interest on the multitude of radio stations available across the land...
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How I perked up at this piccy! A most attractive woman - certainly not overweight but she, like me, has this horrid roll on the tummy. Very likely she too has this as a result of stretching during pregnancy. There is nothing one can do short of plastic surgery. We who unfortunately 'have the gene' suffer disproportionately from damage during pregnancy - I had to pay for an op to repair the damage on the inside. Doctors who informed me that this was a normal consequence of pregnancy drove me to despair (a consequence I might add that is never made clear in the books you read first time round that restrict themselves to a photo of a flattish 'after' tummy with a few delicate silvery stretch marks!) My advice is that if you have bad stretch marks is to try to get a Caesarian section to avoid similar damage on the inside! That's me out of the closet on this.
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"Very likely she too has this as a result of stretching during pregnancy. There is nothing one can do short of plastic surgery."
Hundreds of sit-ups, crunches, et al probably help. I mean, the likes of Mrs. Beckham seem to manage it!
;-)
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