Time readers wised up to truth about trashy rumours and downright lies
Take a stand against magazine muck
LIFE is crazy in the trashy women’s mag land of No Idea and Woman’s Spray.
In major news, Nicole Kidman is pregnant AGAIN. It’s her 75th pregnancy. Not bad for a woman with fertility problems who has never yet given birth. Nicole is also getting ready to divorce Keith AGAIN despite the fact that they look more in love than ever.
Also, Gwyneth’s ex Chris Martin is apparently going out with Kylie Minogue. He joins a long list of famous rockers ( any dude with a pulse who’s under 50) who’s been linked to the star.
Samantha Armytage and 60 Minutes’ Michael Usher are also “secretly dating”. Their love is so secret even they don’t know about it.
There’s also “Jungle Joel’s Hot Date with MasterChef’s Sara”.
Read the fine print to discover that Sara has a partner and Joel is gay.
And, of course, there’s lots about Mariah Carey and James Packer.
According to New Idea, the happy couple went from “they’re eloping” to “they’ve eloped” in the time it took you to turn three magazine pages.
Such mags have long been packed with largely fabricated stories about A- list celebrities.
They’re padded out with yarns about fading TV personalities showing off their surgery scars, with recipes for Mars Bar cupcakes down the back.
Reality TV stars are also popular tabloid mag fodder.
But could things be changing in mag land? Let’s hope so.
Stars such as Kim Kardashian now have social media accounts and are using them to discredit fictional tales the minute they hit news stands.
The mags also got a big fat reality check from their own Facebook pages. The front covers are nowhere to be seen on the mag’s own social media sites and nor are the most farfetched stories. It’s a sign the mags know readers have wised up.
And finally, local stars targeted by these tabloids are also hitting back.
They include Lisa Curry, who was incensed about a recent Woman’s Day story claiming she is back with her exhusband Grant Kenny. It’s the latest in a long line of tripe written about this family.
Tennis player Lleyton Hewitt and his wife Bec have also copped a lot over the years. For years it’s been game on in camp Hewitt. Headlines such as “Lleyton is packing his bags” made it look as if the couple was breaking up when he was just going on tour – with his family.
Recently, radio announcer Kate Ritchie also hit back after a New Idea story suggesting she and Bec Hewitt were no longer friends.
Another pair targeted was Love Child actor Jessica Marais and former fiancee James Stewart. When they split in March, there was an article in Woman’s Day suggesting the separation was due to “hard partying”, “jealousy” and an “irreconcilable incident” involving James’s twin brother Nick. It was not even remotely true.
This week the same mag has an inflammatory cover reading “Real Life Love Child Shock!”. The story inside doesn’t reflect the cover and says Marais is fighting to keep the details of her breakup private – presumably from Woman’s Day writers posing as “inside sources”.
Curry, Ritchie and others are dead right. These magazines should be more accountable. It shouldn’t be legal for them to just make things up, concoct sources and mislead readers.
An “inside source” is really the junior copywriter making it up while everyone else in the office is at the juice bar for lunch.
An innocent photo of two famous people becomes a hook- up, then it becomes a relationship, then an engagement, then a marriage, and then … baby makes three. Sometimes in the space of just a couple of weeks.
Curry says she has tried legal action and has concluded she is powerless to stop the lies being written about her. But the magazines keep getting away with it because people keep on buying their crap.
Indeed, more than one million people are on the New Idea and Woman’s Day Facebook pages and more than three million people read them every week.
If you think we should have higher standards then you have the power to make a difference.
Stop buying these mags and stop reading them. It’s as simple as that. Then they might start writing real stories about real people for a change.
susie. o’brien@ news. com. au