Interview: Helen Johnston, Bliss magazine (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
IT GIVES away makeup to children, shows 14-year-olds how to look 19, and entices pocket money with the promise of a "hot new body". In a sector renowned for controversy, Bliss, the fastest growing magazine for teenage girls, is attracting particular criticism this month over its overtly sexual content.
With headlines such as "Be sexy, be sussed", and a girl's account of her lapdancing career, the magazine stands accused of glamorising sex among the under-16s. And much to its critics' delight, nine out of 10 adults in a BBC poll want the Government to toughen controls on children's publications seen to be promoting sex.
But if Bliss is corrupting a generation's morals, its editor does not appear unduly concerned. "We're providing a service to teenage readers that's absolutely essential," Helen Johnston asserts. "The people who criticise us never actually read it. Maybe they get as far as the coverlines, which are of course the most salacious element of a magazine - but if it read like Enid Blyton, teenagers wouldn't buy it."
Coverlines this month relate to a "pervy sex cult" and an enticement to 21 pages of "sexy secrets".
But Johnston, 37, dismisses them as simply a "sell" to hook readers into what she insists are serious articles inside - "supporting" readers, as she sees it, by addressing issues such as bullying, selfharm and sexual ignorance.
"You've only got to look at Big Brother on TV to see live sex," she explains. "It's all around them.
Bliss puts it in a really responsible context. Yes, there's makeup, but wearing a bit of makeup doesn't mean you're going to rush out and have sex, which is what we're being accused of."
Popular newspapers have also taken issue with a regular Bliss feature, "Look five years older in five minutes". A 14-year-old from Yorkshire undergoes a makeover which convinces an older boy that she is 25. How can it be " responsible" for a teen magazine to emphasise children's cleavage?
"We do makeovers because our readers say they don't feel confident in themselves," Johnston replies. "The girls want help in feeling good about themselves.
There is nothing provocative about the pictures, we've given readers a good ego boost, and it's absolutely patronising and wrong to say that because they're dressed a bit more sophisticatedly they're going to rush out and have sex."
On the contrary, she insists, Bliss is serving a valuable social purpose to its 257,000 buyers, more than half of whom are under 15. "Bliss is one of the few places where teenagers can get support and clear, unprejudiced information that can help them weave their way through the maze of adolescence," she says.
She points to an email received this week in response to the latest newspaper attacks: "When I started reading girls' magazines, I was fairly popular, and everyone thought I was happy, but really I was sad and had self-harm problems," writes 14-year-old Jodie from Cardiff. "After reading an article in Bliss about self-harm, I realised I wasn't alone and sought help."
Had she not, Jodie suggests, she might now be dead.
A recent Bliss survey of 5,000 readers certainly suggests a troubled generation. Their concerns - depression, bullying, drugs, a lack of sex education - led to a meeting in Downing Street between a group of readers and the Prime One girl, now 16, told him that she had only recently had her first sex education lesson at school, but that four years ago, three fellow pupils had become pregnant at 12.
"The reality is, some children are having sex at that age," Johnston says.
"It's not Bliss that's making them have sex. We're not ' perverting' a future generation, we're trying to support them, just being realistic about what's going on out there. Somehow parents become blind to what's going on when their children reach their teens.
Whereas we have their ear, and they are willing to open up to us."
Was Sugar magazine right to help readers order free condoms?
"I'm not in the business of defending Sugar," she says, "but I think it's absolutely vital that teenagers have access to free contraception, Minister.
because it's much better that they're having protected sex than unsafe sex. Of course, the best case of all is that they're not having sex at all until they're well over 16."
She seems to speak with conviction: her latest editor's letter reveals that she was almost 20 before she lost her virginity. "I can't believe I told my readers that," she reflects, "but I really do want to convince people there isn't any hurry. It's what we say in the magazine all the time, which the media don't bother reading. They flick through, see 'Be sexy, be sussed', and say, 'That's just sexualising teenagers' - whereas it's actually a campaign that says do not have sex, be sussed about it.
But if we simply said it's illegal to have sex under 16, everybody would turn off."
The advice pages, certainly, take their responsibilities seriously, reminding a 15-year-old that it is illegal for her boyfriend to have sex with her, and telling another that "14 is too young for sex".
"There was a time when teen mags could be outrageous and provocative," Johnston accepts, but that was before the sector agreed in 1996 to regulate itself through the Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel.
THE guidelines on sexual content are stringent: "Where underage sex or sexual abuse is discussed, it will be clearly stated as illegal," the rules state. Problem-page letters must be genuinely written by readers, the replies "provided by relevant, professionally qualified advisers".
Yet something must be leading a stream of critics, from the ATL teachers' union to Bob Geldof, to identify a problem. Geldof cannot have read the magazine, says Johnston.
"I was so shocked, as he was effectively calling me and my team paedophiles.
That was outrageous, and even his daughter, Peaches, wrote in her newspaper column that it was utterly patronising to suggest that because teenagers read a magazine they'll go out and shag around."
As for the ATL's concerns, Johnston responds that they were more about eight- and nine-year-olds reading the magazine, "and I do think there needs to be a degree of parental responsibility".
Johnston herself is the parent of a two-year-old boy; she is separated from her husband and lives in Islington. She grew up in Norfolk and after working on newspapers in Hong Kong, rose to be deputy editor of British Marie Claire.
After a spell on the Daily Mail, she became number two on Cosmopolitan. She has been at Bliss for two and a half years.
But as well as a job, she now has a cause to believe in. "Teenagers are ignored and patronised so much of the time, and I want their voices to be heard," she says. "I really believe we're doing a good job to support them when they're being attacked from all sides."
That is a position Johnston can well understand.
(Evening Standard, September 15, 2004)
IT GIVES away makeup to children, shows 14-year-olds how to look 19, and entices pocket money with the promise of a "hot new body". In a sector renowned for controversy, Bliss, the fastest growing magazine for teenage girls, is attracting particular criticism this month over its overtly sexual content.
With headlines such as "Be sexy, be sussed", and a girl's account of her lapdancing career, the magazine stands accused of glamorising sex among the under-16s. And much to its critics' delight, nine out of 10 adults in a BBC poll want the Government to toughen controls on children's publications seen to be promoting sex.
But if Bliss is corrupting a generation's morals, its editor does not appear unduly concerned. "We're providing a service to teenage readers that's absolutely essential," Helen Johnston asserts. "The people who criticise us never actually read it. Maybe they get as far as the coverlines, which are of course the most salacious element of a magazine - but if it read like Enid Blyton, teenagers wouldn't buy it."
Coverlines this month relate to a "pervy sex cult" and an enticement to 21 pages of "sexy secrets".
But Johnston, 37, dismisses them as simply a "sell" to hook readers into what she insists are serious articles inside - "supporting" readers, as she sees it, by addressing issues such as bullying, selfharm and sexual ignorance.
"You've only got to look at Big Brother on TV to see live sex," she explains. "It's all around them.
Bliss puts it in a really responsible context. Yes, there's makeup, but wearing a bit of makeup doesn't mean you're going to rush out and have sex, which is what we're being accused of."
Popular newspapers have also taken issue with a regular Bliss feature, "Look five years older in five minutes". A 14-year-old from Yorkshire undergoes a makeover which convinces an older boy that she is 25. How can it be " responsible" for a teen magazine to emphasise children's cleavage?
"We do makeovers because our readers say they don't feel confident in themselves," Johnston replies. "The girls want help in feeling good about themselves.
There is nothing provocative about the pictures, we've given readers a good ego boost, and it's absolutely patronising and wrong to say that because they're dressed a bit more sophisticatedly they're going to rush out and have sex."
On the contrary, she insists, Bliss is serving a valuable social purpose to its 257,000 buyers, more than half of whom are under 15. "Bliss is one of the few places where teenagers can get support and clear, unprejudiced information that can help them weave their way through the maze of adolescence," she says.
She points to an email received this week in response to the latest newspaper attacks: "When I started reading girls' magazines, I was fairly popular, and everyone thought I was happy, but really I was sad and had self-harm problems," writes 14-year-old Jodie from Cardiff. "After reading an article in Bliss about self-harm, I realised I wasn't alone and sought help."
Had she not, Jodie suggests, she might now be dead.
A recent Bliss survey of 5,000 readers certainly suggests a troubled generation. Their concerns - depression, bullying, drugs, a lack of sex education - led to a meeting in Downing Street between a group of readers and the Prime One girl, now 16, told him that she had only recently had her first sex education lesson at school, but that four years ago, three fellow pupils had become pregnant at 12.
"The reality is, some children are having sex at that age," Johnston says.
"It's not Bliss that's making them have sex. We're not ' perverting' a future generation, we're trying to support them, just being realistic about what's going on out there. Somehow parents become blind to what's going on when their children reach their teens.
Whereas we have their ear, and they are willing to open up to us."
Was Sugar magazine right to help readers order free condoms?
"I'm not in the business of defending Sugar," she says, "but I think it's absolutely vital that teenagers have access to free contraception, Minister.
because it's much better that they're having protected sex than unsafe sex. Of course, the best case of all is that they're not having sex at all until they're well over 16."
She seems to speak with conviction: her latest editor's letter reveals that she was almost 20 before she lost her virginity. "I can't believe I told my readers that," she reflects, "but I really do want to convince people there isn't any hurry. It's what we say in the magazine all the time, which the media don't bother reading. They flick through, see 'Be sexy, be sussed', and say, 'That's just sexualising teenagers' - whereas it's actually a campaign that says do not have sex, be sussed about it.
But if we simply said it's illegal to have sex under 16, everybody would turn off."
The advice pages, certainly, take their responsibilities seriously, reminding a 15-year-old that it is illegal for her boyfriend to have sex with her, and telling another that "14 is too young for sex".
"There was a time when teen mags could be outrageous and provocative," Johnston accepts, but that was before the sector agreed in 1996 to regulate itself through the Teenage Magazine Arbitration Panel.
THE guidelines on sexual content are stringent: "Where underage sex or sexual abuse is discussed, it will be clearly stated as illegal," the rules state. Problem-page letters must be genuinely written by readers, the replies "provided by relevant, professionally qualified advisers".
Yet something must be leading a stream of critics, from the ATL teachers' union to Bob Geldof, to identify a problem. Geldof cannot have read the magazine, says Johnston.
"I was so shocked, as he was effectively calling me and my team paedophiles.
That was outrageous, and even his daughter, Peaches, wrote in her newspaper column that it was utterly patronising to suggest that because teenagers read a magazine they'll go out and shag around."
As for the ATL's concerns, Johnston responds that they were more about eight- and nine-year-olds reading the magazine, "and I do think there needs to be a degree of parental responsibility".
Johnston herself is the parent of a two-year-old boy; she is separated from her husband and lives in Islington. She grew up in Norfolk and after working on newspapers in Hong Kong, rose to be deputy editor of British Marie Claire.
After a spell on the Daily Mail, she became number two on Cosmopolitan. She has been at Bliss for two and a half years.
But as well as a job, she now has a cause to believe in. "Teenagers are ignored and patronised so much of the time, and I want their voices to be heard," she says. "I really believe we're doing a good job to support them when they're being attacked from all sides."
That is a position Johnston can well understand.
(Evening Standard, September 15, 2004)
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