B*Witched, unblushered and bewildering

God love B*Witched, but I'm not sure they're the best band to go to for a famous faces without make-up article.

Don't you need people to remember what they look like with make-up for it to work?

The Daily Mail sets the scene:

While some popstars have felt the need to go under the knife to keep their young appearances, one girl group never felt the need to.

While welcoming the positive message of the piece, presumably part of the reason why B*Witched haven't popped down the cosmetic surgeon is not unrelated to the same reason that people haven't been popping down HMV to buy B*Witched records, surely?

The whole thing collapses in a self-defeating sinkhole:

'There’s a lot of pressure, especially on young girls, to look like the really polished version of celebs you see in magazines,' she told Heat magazine.

'It’s nice for them to see pictures like this.'

Yes. The best place to go to send out positive messages about body image to young women is Heat magazine, where they will sit unread amongst a bunch of articles about how fat, thin, wrinkly, sweaty and disgusting everyone else is. It's like doing a bit about peaceful dispute resolution in Guns And Ammo.

[Thanks to Michael M]

The secret diary of Mark Frith

Another dip into the sound of selves being justified as we open up Mark Frith's Heat editing diary:

The front page of today's Mirror shows Kate Moss appearing to snort cocaine at a recording session with her boyfriend Pete Doherty.

Yes, it's a good story, but surprising? I don't think so. Heat won't be running anything on it. Our readers are not interested in this horrible couple.

The Heat audience are surprisingly specific, aren't they?

Mikey and Gracey from Big Brother? Pull up a chair. Peter Andre and Jordan? We're all agog. Paris Hilton? What have you got? Kate Moss and Pete Doherty? God, do you think we're interested in them? What must you think of us?

It's not like they're interested in gossip about famous people or anything.

The secret diary of Mark Frith

Time, once again, to open the diary of Mark Frith. This time, we find Mark publishing stickers mocking a severely disabled child, despite - as he cheerfully admits - his colleagues having told him they didn't think it was a good idea.

Mark attempts to set up his justification early. In an entry which predates his sticker calamity, he mentions that Jordan did an interview about her kid:

While most celebrities are protective of their children, it's in Jordan's interest to be public about them.

You see? It's her, she put them in the public domain. Her! Her! HER!

Frith explains what he means by "in her interest" - "she makes a fortune out of posing with them" - but does he mean that otherwise nobody would write about her? That's clearly not true, as his magazine never finds reasons to ignore a Jordan story if it can.

He then points out that Jordan can sometimes see that aspects of Harvey's behaviour can be amusing:

She makes a fortune from posing with them and in our interview she speaks a lot about him - particularly his food intake and weight.

It can't be easy for her but she's very funny about it. 'Sometimes I ask: "Do you love Mummy?" He says: "No." Then I say: "Do you love cake?" He instantly says: "Yes." '

So, there's his justification set up. Forward, now, to November:

The stickers are due at the printers when one of my team interjects.

'Some of us have a real problem with the Harvey one. People will take offence and we shouldn't do it.'

'No one will take offence. Everyone knows Jordan is always joking about the amount he eats. Leave it in. It'll be fine.'

So, Mark doesn't actually see there's a difference between a mother saying of her own child "he says the funniest things sometimes; he said he loves cake" and a commercial magazine giving its readers stickers that say "Harvey wants to eat me." Frith even attempts to say the sticker is "a reference to the interviews she gives the Press about her son's ravenous food intake" rather than a reference to the child being quite large for his age.

Forward another couple of weeks, and Frith is starting to have slight - only slight - doubts:

The new issue is back from the printers. There's still disquiet about the Harvey sticker and, seeing it in the middle of the magazine, I'm starting to worry. It feels all wrong.

But isn't the editor's job to twig this sort of "all wrongness" in the first place?

You'll note he doesn't say it is wrong - just that it feels all wrong. He also doesn't say sorry:

There has been a lot of criticism about the Harvey sticker - from the media and readers.

I seek advice and am told I must write a letter to Jordan, and have a statement prepared for any media outlet that wants a comment.

He "seeks advice"; he's told to "write a letter". No word of contrition yet.

Today's Times has a piece on Jordangate under the headline: The Lowest Point In British Journalism.

In 1989, The Times' sister newspaper, The Sun, ran an article about the Hillsborough football disaster and alleged that Liverpool fans had picked the pockets of victims and urinated on police officers as they tended to the dying and injured.

The Sun had to admit that none of the allegations were true. They apologised, yet even now there are large sections of Liverpool where newsagents still refuse to stock it.

But, according to The Times, our sticker was worse than that.

A big mistake? Undoubtedly. A misjudgment on my part? Guilty as charged. The lowest point in British journalism? I don't think so. Still, the pressure on me is mounting.

So, it's a "misjudgement" - at least he goes that far - and then lumbers into another misjudgement by trying to justify his actions by comparing them to something one of his critic's sister papers did twenty years ago.

And, yes, the Sun's Hillsborough coverage was shocking. But, on the other hand, you published - as a giveaway - a sticker for readers to decorate their belongings with which featured a jibe at a disabled child.

You're right, of course, Frith, the Times was wrong to say it was the lowest point in British journalism. But only because this isn't journalism, it's just turning people into freakshows.

Yesterday, we heard how Frith justified his cruelty towards Leslie Ash when she was at a low point in her life by suggesting it's what his readers would be doing anyway. You'd have thought if he really believed in that as an excuse, he'd be deploying it here, too, wouldn't you? It's almost as if he knows in his heart that there are just some things you might hear on the streets that shouldn't be given the dignity of print - even the spurious dignity of Heat - but can't quite bring himself to admit it.

The secret diary of Mark Frith

Hard though it may be to believe, the Mail is running a third day of Mark Frith's diaries.

Mark is opening his Christmas cards:

No matter how well things are going, there are Ricky Gervais's Christmas cards to put you in your place.

Last year it was: 'Dear people in charge of fame. Merry Xmas. PS: I have a picture of a celebrity with a pimple. If you magnify it, you could fill a couple of pages. Do I get any money?'

This year he's gone for: 'To all Heat readers, May you find happiness and something better to do with your time in the New Year. Love, Ricky Gervais.'

This is, actually, one of the most fascinating things I've read - Ricky Gervais, desperately trying to distance himself from the whole celebrity merry-go-round, but not so far he's not going to not send Heat a Christmas card; the editor of Heat, knowing that the card is an uncomfortable attempt to simultaneously embrace and yet keep dignity , suggesting that the messages undercut him, but still using them to bolster how important he is.

The secret diary of Mark Frith

Pull on your rubber gloves, and let's rummage once again in the diary of former Heat editor Mark Frith.

Mark decides to make a stand for press freedom:

Today we've run our Leslie Ash piece with a sidebar entitled: What Does She Look Like? - featuring pictures of a Canary Rockfish, Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars, Jack Nicholson as The Joker and Janice from The Muppets.

I read the piece through three times before it went off - are we being just a little too cruel? In the end I decided that we had to go with it because it is completely in sync with what our readers will be thinking.

In offices, colleges and front rooms right now, people are discussing this picture - and they're not being kind.

Aha! That's alright then. It's okay to be snide about the picture, because people will be looking at the picture and being snide about it. What's the Eminem defence? "'cause I'm only givin' you things you joke about with your friends inside your living room"?

Of course, Frith doesn't stop to think why people are talking about the picture in the first place - because the media published it for people to be snide about in the first place.

And even if people are being snide, does Frith have to join in?

Apart from exposing the howling lack of human feeling that sits in the place where his mother must have hoped a soul would have formed, what the hell is the point of a magazine which merely lists the cruel jokes its readers would have already made?

The secret diary of Mark Frith

Let us dip again into Mark Frith's diary, an insight into what life is really like deciding how much you should pay for a photo of someone from Big Brother in a bikini. Mark gets a call to step in front of the cameras:

Today, I filmed the 'celebrity' edition of The Weakest Link. Which is odd, given that I'm not remotely famous.

When I signed up to do this, the people on it alongside me were pretty impressive: Jarvis Cocker, Mo Mowlam and members of the So Solid Crew. By the time I arrived the line-up had become me, Edwina Currie, one of Bucks Fizz, the bloke who runs marathons in silly outfits for charity and Terry Christian, the TV presenter.

This is curious - given that Frith is editing the nation's celebrity magazine, surely he'd know that when researchers are trying to lure people on the telly, they tell them who else is doing it - but always, always, reading from the dream list drawn up during the official brain storm ("Archbishop Tutu! Gordon Ramsay! Kelvin McKenzie!") rather than the shorter list of those who've said yes (That bloke off the thing about hairdressing... the TV editor of the Daily Post... Bobby Ball, if Tommy still refuses to do Celebrity Donkey Punch...). Surely, though, even he must have realised that if they're reduced to ringing the bloke who edits Heat, they've pretty much run out of celebrity options and are starting to think about reworking it as an ITV Regional Weather forecasters Special instead?

Mark does go on - and beats Edwina Currie in the final round. He lists how much he won for his charity but, oddly, doesn't mention the name of the charity - which, you would have thought, would have made sense to have dropped in if it was a cause close to his heart.

Mark is so self-effacing about his lowly status throughout. And yet he dismisses the great Bernie Clifton as "the bloke who runs marathons in silly outfits for charity".

The secret diary of Mark Frith

The Daily Mail is running extracts from Mark Frith's diaries this week. Frith was the editor of Heat - which we think means he tossed the coin every issue to decide if it was going to be a "Look - they're fat" issue, or a "Scary thin celebs" edition.

Of course, "got up, went in, drew a circle around a sweat patch on Lindsay Lohan's shirt, suggested 'ewwww' caption" isn't going to keep the Mail readers interested, so instead we get Mark's response to September 11th. People hurling themselves to certain death? The largest attack on US soil? The prospect of a generation of fear and war? Why, it makes you think:

Our critics are saying that everything's changed - that there's a new seriousness in the air and that celebrity culture is dead. Perhaps they're right.

But then I watch as female customers come and go. Without exception, they walk past the papers and pick up Heat or OK or Now.

Not much about these women seems to have changed. Although I'm sure they're shocked by what has happened, their concerns are clearly still the same: Will they get to work on time? Will their money last until their next pay packet?

And now more than ever they need entertainment, a diversion from the horrors of the latest news bulletin. They want something frivolous, something to lose themselves in, something glamorous.

What do they want, Mark?

They want celebrities.

The celebrities will save us! They'll make everything all right! If only Bush had thought of that, eh - instead of eventually coming out of hiding to announce war on Osama Bin Laden, he should have just got Paris Hilton to snog Britney Spears. America would have been back on an even keel by teatime.

Note, too, that Frith insists every single woman was buying a celeb magazine - he doesn't recall what men were buying; probably something about locomotives or woodworking. Maybe they were buying the newspapers. But the little ladies, love them, they needed some shots of Rod Stewart, to save their pretty little heads from all the big thoughts in the news.

Kelly Osbourne tries to pull a Ditto

Kelly Osbourne has shared her 'disappointment' with reaction to her recent weight loss:

"I don't like the way that suddenly now everyone likes me because I've lost two stone. Why was I a bitch before? Because I was fat?"

We're not quite sure why this is disappointing to her - did she hope that people would continue to dislike her? (Actually, we're not sure that people do like her now any more than they did when you used to be able to buy those toys of her with the duck beak where her mouth should have been, but we'll let that slide.)

The singer claimed that overweight people are vilified more than "a junkie".

Really? Or is that hyperbole?

Kelly, 23, told Heat magazine: "I was always the fat spoilt brat because I was fat."

Well, yes - otherwise you'd have just been a spoilt brat, though. It's not so much of an advantage.

Having ranted a little about being treated badly because she was fat, Kelly then, um, denies she was fat at all:

"Just because I'm a size 8-10 now doesn't mean a size 12 was fat.

There is an important debate to be had about people's attitudes to body shape; it would just be better if Kelly thought through her views before joining in.

It might also help more if you don't give interviews about how terrible the attitude to overweight people is to magazines like Heat, which are partly responsible for that sort of thing in the first place. Complaining about body fascism to Heat is like objecting to petrol consumption in Top Gear magazine.

Desmond sues Heat over Spears

Richard Desmond's OK magazine is launching a legal against Heat over chunks of an interview with Jamie Lynn Spears they maintain was lifted from their publication. It's about pride, rather than money:

"OK! magazine has established its reputation in the UK, the USA and throughout the world by the relationship of trust it builds with celebrities," said OK!'s group editorial director, Paul Ashford.

"We take pride in handling their stories and pictures in a positive and responsible way. We go to all possible lengths within the law to protect these exclusives and safeguard the interests of the celebrities and of our own readers."

Ah, yes. OK should be justly proud of its positive and responsible handling of stories and photos.

This would be the same OIK Magazine whose "positive and responsible" outing of a person attending Alcoholics Anonymous was this described by the Press Complaints Commission:

It was clear that the magazine had published private information about the complainant. Taken together, the photograph, its caption, and the information in the article constituted intrusive material about her attendance at an AA meeting. The fact of her treatment was not in the public domain, and there was no public interest reason for publishing references to it without her consent.
The defence advanced by the magazine – that there was no breach of the Code because readers might think the complainant was at the meeting only to provide moral support – was clearly without merit. The fact was that the magazine had stated that she had attended the meeting and published a photograph of her outside it. It did not know whether she had been there for treatment herself, and took no care in its presentation of the material to avoid a possible intrusion into her privacy. This was reckless in the circumstances, as shown by the subsequent revelation that she had indeed been at the clinic for treatment. It was also regrettable that the magazine had not engaged with the complainant’s solicitor when a complaint was made directly to the publication.

Yes. Breaching someone's privacy when they're vulnerable, making up spurious justifications and ignoring their victim when they try to seek an apology. You can see why OK would be rushing to court to protect their reputation for "positive and responsible" handling of stories, can't you?

Jordan accepts Heat's apologies

Heat has apologised to Jordan for any offence its stickers caused her family:

“It was never our intention to cause offence to Harvey’s family and friends nor to you, our readers. In particular, it was never our aim to make fun of Harvey’s disabilities.

“We now accept that the decision to include this sticker was a mistake and we recognise that it has caused offence, not only to Katie and Peter Andre, but to a number of readers.”

Now, it's a good thing to stand up and say sorry when you're wrong, but is an apology genuine when it's clearly a lie?

"In particular, it was never our aim to make fun of Harvey’s disabilities" say Heat. So... what was the aim when you published a sticker of a disabled child with the words "Harvey wants to eat me", on a sheet full of "amusing" stickers, then? Was it an awareness-raising campaign? Was it serious reportage? What, Heat magazine, was your intention if not to make fun of Harvey's disabilities?

Feeling the Heat

I was a bit surprised when popping into the Co-Op yesterday to see that - not only are they still happily selling the current edition of Heat, the one with the "amusing" stickers that mock a woman who had been the victim of a nasty violent attack, people on medication for serious illnesses and - topping the lot - a disabled child, but were giving the magazine a pride-of-place spot by the cash registers. I suppose the Co-Op has long since abandoned its "caring, sharing" strapline.

Janice Turner in The Times has called EMAP on the stickers.

Remember that time we thought you were pregnant?

Madonna has got into a right old "two and eight" as her duff-cockernee-wannabe-spouse would doubtless put it over Heat magazine's front-page claim that she's with child. We can't see why she's so pissed off at this one - phantom Maddy pregnancies date right back to IPC's short lived The Hit in the mid-80's, after all.

Unless she's not sleeping with Guy at the moment, of course. Anyway, Madonna has trumpeted off the to Press Complaints Commission to rage against this invasion of her privacy. But we wonder if the tarnished Queen of Pop has realised that she's got another useful area to attack the OK-its-for-some-reason-okay-to-like on?

Only the Tv adverts for Heat featured an explicit shot of the 'Madonna's Pregnant' front page. if it's really that bad, will she also be sending letters to the ITC and BSC?