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September 15, 2008 11:02 AM

MORE ON MONDAY: The Celeb Diaries by Mark Frith

Like Miranda in Sex and the City I love to read about celebrities and gossip. As she would say "it is my thing." The only celebrity magazine I buy though is Heat. To me it is the original and the best. There are certain things that I became uncomfortable with, and even emailed them about on a few occasions expressing my outrage (though they weren't printed) but now I've read the book by Mark Frith, the ex-editor of Heat and the man responsible for it's huge sales, I can see what the intention of these features were (even if they didn't always work).

For those of you who don't know about Heat, I'll give you some background. Heat was a serious, wordy entertainment magazine that flopped as soon as it was launched. Mark Frith from Smash Hits magazine took over as editor and relaunched the magazine with a focus on celebrities. It was 1999 and that year everyone was talking about Posh and Becks' wedding. People weren't interested in a serious entertainment weekly. They wanted glamour, fashion and gossip. Heat got bigger and so did Joe Public's obsession with celebrities. Big Brother started and soon everyday people were famous just for sitting in a house for a few weeks. Put them on the front of Heat magazine and sales soared.

Mark Frith calls the last ten years the "celebrity decade" and cites its beginnings with Posh and Becks engagement. The Celeb Diaries details the magazine's growth during that time and it describes the decisions he made. In the beginning it was naive, fun, a bit mocking. Nobody took these people too seriously. But then there was a shift which Mark became uncomfortable with. Instead of tabloid photographs of Helen and Paul from Big Brother during their courtship, he was being sent pictures of Amy Whitehouse with slashes all over her arms. The world of celebrity had become darker. So he resigned as the editor of Heat.

Mark also talks about the obsession with being skinny. Whenever they put a headline on the front page saying, for example, "You are too thin" I was bothered. Why this obsession with women and the way they looked? Then from reading the book I see that Mark and his colleagues were genuinely concerned about women in the spotlight making themselves too thin, particularly in the glossy magazines and what impact this had on young girls. They even had a letter from a relieved mum whose daughter had just read the Heat article. This girl had been starving herself.

Mark writes terrifically well (and so he should as a journalist and ex editor). I don't think the world of celebrities is as shocking as we would have found it a few years ago. For "juicy gossip" there isn't really any that you don't already know. Although how celebrities react to their scoops was very insightful.

The Celeb Diaries is one man's take on a world that bemused him. I found the book absolutely fascinating, both in its description of the growth in the magazine and the growth in the celebrity culture. He is engaging but also honest. It was interesting to see that where I was "outraged" with certain features or stunts he admits that mistakes were made.

Then towards the end, we see the man who has played a large part in building up the celebrity culture, actually becoming a little ashamed by this shift to the darker side.

He summarises it all up when he is in the Maldives after the dreadful Boxing Day tsunami. The latest figures show that more than 250,000 people are dead or missing. And now I need to go to work and write about celebrities.

A great read.

Rating: 5/5

Like this? Try Don't You Know Who I Am? by Piers Morgan

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Posted by Helen Redfern on September 15, 2008 in Celebrity Authors, Non Fiction, Rating: 5/5 | Permalink

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