For anyone to suggest that Charlie Webster has damaged her career by posing for a sexy FHM photo session is simply absurd. Does anyone think that glamour shoots have harmed the reputations of her Sky colleagues Kirsty Gallagher and Charlotte Jackson? Being beautiful never damaged the career of Gabby Logan, one of the most successful broadcasters in TV Sport and recently voted 2012 Celebrity Mum of the Year – and why should it?
I had to laugh when my former associate Charlie Sale wrote in the Daily Mail that “There is considerable annoyance among management and her fellow Sky Sports News presenters over Charlie Webster appearing scantily clad on the cover and inside lads’ magazine FHM.” Sale claims the FHM shoot (video below) “upset a number of her female colleagues, who feel such exposure can only damage their efforts to be taken seriously as broadcast journalists and become known for the quality of their work rather than their looks.” Really?
Vic Wakeling, the former Head of Sky Sports, once confided: “It is our policy to appoint glamorous presenters because that is what the viewers want.” True, Wakeing has retired. While former presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray got the bullet after embarrassing the channel with male chauvinistic comments a couple of years ago. But that has not stopped the hugely popular satellite channel from filling our screens with good looking presenters, as Webster’s anchor role merely confirms. What’s more, why should they change a winning formula and where does it say in the book of life that you can’t have brains and beauty?
Personally, I have always supported the old adage “If you’ve got it flaunt it.” No one would seriously argue that David Beckham or Jess Ennis have cheapened their image by doing exactly that and cashing in on their good looks. So why should we think any less of TV presenters who do exactly the same thing.
Even Clare Balding, the classy BBC thoroughbred with an air of royalty about her, has cast her inhibitions aside and tried to sex up her appeal by proudly posing as a covergirl for Lesbian monthly Diva. Good luck to her and I’m sure the vast majority of the Great British public respect her for doing so.
Instead of trying to sell newspapers with salacious gossip, hacks like Charlie Sale would be doing us all a favour if they paid more attention to giving credit where it is due and highlighting Sky’s current quest to champion Women In Sport. No channel did more to promote International Women’s Day than Sky Sports News with an excellent amount of airtime for inspirational female role models.
Sale, meanwhile, a journalist who would never win a beauty contest, is undoubtedly among the many thousands of readers FHM are targeting by featuring glamorous photoshoots. It would be hypocritical of the sports gossip monger to claim otherwise. He certainly has an eye for a beautiful woman, as I experienced first hand when he brazenly leered over my ex in my presence with accompanying words that I could not possibly repeat here. Does that lose him any respect with his colleagues?
