I think it’s fair to say that I am a fairly gullible person when it comes to marketing. After all, I have bought all the mascara in the world and I still don’t have eyelashes like they promise, I have tried almost every concealer and you can still see that I have blemishes and I have bought at least three different kinds of egg poachers and I still can’t make restaurant quality eggs.
I also tend to take in most things I see in print, believing (erroneously) that if it’s been commissioned by an editor, produced by a journalist, looked over by a sub-editor and gone through legals etc it should have a grain or more of truth.
Oh how naive I am. I remember listening to Hamish and Andy speaking about a photo that had appeared of Andy and Megan Gale in a mag. It was still at the time they were going out and it wasn’t even a big story – just some shot of Andy and Megan in the sea together. The image looked like they were alone on a deserted beach frolicking in the sea with only a lone cameraman ambushing the shot. Until they spoke about it on the radio and explained how they had been with LOTS of people at the beach and indeed many of them were in the water with them but they had been photo-shopped out of the scene so that the editorial staff could create the image they wanted to go with the story.
Just a couple of weeks ago I heard a similar conversation happening on the Fifi and Jules show (yes I listen to the radio a lot). They were speaking about a photo that had been taken of two celebrities at the Melbourne Cup. The way the photo was taken made it look like it was taken from a distance and captured a very private moment between two lovers. In fact it was taken in a very public place where two people (who were NOT lovers) just happened to be talking in a crowd of other people.
Photo-shop can change all that background and give a whole new meaning to a picture. Words can distort that even further so that when it is published in the paper the next day you are lead to believe something happened- when really it didn’t.
And the cover-story lines are just as flawed in what they are delivering. I know that I have caught myself countless times flicking through a magazine to get to the article that was promised on the cover. Only problem is that the cover line is hardly ever a truthful representation of what is on the inside pages.
Last night Johanna Griggs sent out this tweet –
and here’s why
New.com.au reports
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The Better Homes and Gardens star said the cover story “Johanna Griggs: My shock news at 40” was complete “fiction” and that she had never even spoken to New Idea.
Despite the website revealing they would divulge a “perennially sunny Johanna Griggs’ secret” in the issue, the article was written from a series of quotes Griggs gave to The Daily Telegraph, The Australian and a previous story recycled from 2009.
The “secret” was simply “the joy she’d be feeling at 40” with a second season of House Rules commissioned – a fact revealed back in June.
Hardly a big secret and certainly not an insider scoop.
It angers me that magazines can do this to their readership. It’s completely disrespectful to the celebrity they are “promoting” and it’s lying to their audience. And Johanna Griggs responding like this impresses me no end. Good on her for bringing light to this hideous practice of deceit that some people are paying to read.
I’m not going to pretend that I am not interested in pop culture, and while I would not call myself a gossip devotee, I can’t help but be fascinated by the lives of other people. Rich, famous, educated, poor, isolated, infamous or generous – I am interested in people and like to read. But I am interested in what they say, interested in their story – not the story a writer wants to stick to them.
And I’m not alone. I constantly hear people going on about how magazines are lying to us, not just with the content of their stories,, their made up cover lines and their pretense at “uncovering secrets” but with their air brushed fake images. I certainly learned a lot of the tricks that magazine editors employ while working at Mamamia and I am glad and proud to say that it’s something Mia Freedman taught me that has made me look at myself and the perfect magazines images differently.
I’m not even going to start on the drivel they feed you with their diets as summer approaches. Just look at that New Idea cover above. Sufficeth it to say that I was almost tempted to read the article on the cover below (I am very good at sleeping) but experience has taught me that it’s just another lie. Okay experience AND common sense.
So if I am not alone and so many people feel angered by stories like this who is still buying the magazines?
Are you? Do you read magazines? Do you buy them for the crosswords? Or do you just like the escape?
I’m not a fan of celebrity magazines, but if people want to read them, they should be free to do so…
Making up shit, however, shouldn’t be acceptable… that’s just insulting the readers…
Made up shit should be sold as fiction
I refuse to buy magazines for this very reason. But clearly SOMEONE is still buying the bloody things!
As long as they are not believing what they are reading. Sort of
I will know I’ve hit the big time when someone makes up a story about me.
“Kerri’s massive surprise…. at 40!”
(Except, you know, I’m 45…..)
Not me! I am surprised magazines still exist with the prevalence of smartphones & tablets these says! Perhaps it’s technophobes still buying magazines in which case readership should be shrinking?! So eventually these lie peddling scandal rag purveyors of bad body image might just go under? One can only hope!
I like to read Who magazine but I never believe anything in it 🙂 I also subscribe to Donna Hay magazine but that’s hardly celebrity gossip and she always has such nice recipes.
Food magazines are my favourite – even though I know even they are airbrushed!
I’ve come to the conclusion that 90% of the gossip mags are pure fiction. And if I read that Jen Aniston is having a baby one more time I will scream – how many times have we seen that headline and it still hasn’t happened?!
Can you imagine BEING Jennifer Aniston and reading all those articles!!
Every now and then I find myself in a cafe or doctor’s surgery with a magazine like this in hand, but I never buy them anymore. Basically I don’t believe a word they say thanks to the bad practices of a few, so even the ‘good’ stories seem deceitful. I may as well read a novel that I KNOW is fiction! I get my news – even my celebrity fluff – from a handful of online sources that I feel I can trust (to some extent, anyway). I suppose journalism has always relied on sensation, but the trend for shock headlines nowadays is simply deceptive and annoying.
I think it’s the doctors and cafes that are buying all the magazines! And you’re right – it is fiction, if they would just frame it as such they would get more of my business!
I don’t buy or read gossip magazines, although like Lara said, I would read them if stuck at the doctor’s (mine is ALWAYS late). I’ve worked as a journalist and to me, practices like this are shameful. Sensationalist headlines, sub-headings etc annoy me – and don’t get me started on photo-shopped images. At the newspaper, people would ask, “Can you make me look good?” or “Can you photo-shop out my double chin” … we did not photo shop but I would try to take photos at a flattering angle.
I also get annoyed though when newspapers deliberately use photos that make people look stupid. It’s usually pollies, but even so …
Misrepresenting people in any shape or form is reprehensible. Also why do doctor’s ALWAYS run late? Mine is the pits 😉
I too want to know who is actually spending their hard-earned dollars on these magazines which are just made up rubbish. I don’t know one person who buys them. How do they survive in this tough economic environment?
Doctor’s rooms and cafes 😉
I think you make the point about false marketing and fakery really well, what worries me is that some magazines appear to work on the assumption that readers just accept it and even possibly expect this stuff. It’s quite breathtaking how far they can go before being called, as they were this week by Johanna Griggs (good on her) and also by readers (Woman’s Day) over the ‘Kate is not coping with motherhood’ rubbish it ran on the cover. Only a critical mass of readers and story subjects standing up will prompt a change of tack I think. Wendy
I feel a bit silly , admitting I buy the magazines..I have always thought most of the ‘celebrity’ stories were made up..It is ridiculous..I don’t know why I buy them.
I thought the Woman’s Day one a couple of weeks ago, criticising Kate’s appearance was ridiculous..
Of course she would look a bit tired with a new baby..
I don’t understand why they have to make up stories..
There is another couple of magazines on sale, that are ‘real life’ stories , from real families etc..
Maybe they should try that , instead of making up rubbish…
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