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Original poster

To ask how Liz Jones has a career

75 replies

BewaretheIckabog · 30/12/2023 20:09

She seems incredibly self-centred but lacks any self-awareness.

Her writing is poor and her use of punctuation is interesting.

Does she have any serious journalistic background or does she just write ‘woe is me’ stuff in the DM?

She’s not witty, self-deprecating or funny and does not seem to have any opinions, convictions or interests that readers would follow.

OP posts:
GoldEarrings · 31/12/2023 09:26

There are a lot of 'celebs' i wonder how they are successful like Lorraine, Ben Shepherd, Kate Garaway, Holly, Jamila... just so dull and fake.
They know a few secrets of very important people I guess.

tennissquare · 31/12/2023 09:31

Lorraine candy also has a Facebook group linked to the podcast called Postcards from Midlife which has become a bit like a mini MN.

Sunflowersinthewind · 31/12/2023 09:31

She wrote quite a lovely book about her cats ages ago. That's all that is good about her

TrashedSofa · 31/12/2023 09:32

Because she's adept at what she does. She knows what people want to read and she writes it, truthfully or otherwise. Shamelessness sells.

Charlieiscool · 31/12/2023 09:49

I liked her podcast and miss it. She can be infuriating sometimes but she is likeable and funny.

Els1e · 31/12/2023 09:51

I agree with you OP. I’ve never understood how Liz Jones is employed as any kind of writer. It’s like reading the diary of a teenage girl.

ManyATrueWord · 31/12/2023 10:10

I liked her version of Marie Claire best. It fell off after she left. There were some really excellent articles she commissioned. I remember one about Irish Traveller weddings twenty years before any other media noticed they existed.

ehb102 · 31/12/2023 10:11

Her eating disorder was a bit too prevalent in her writing for me to enjoy her work. Her world truths were definitely seen through a lens of anorexia.

KohlaParasaurus · 31/12/2023 10:25

She has journalistic longevity, a decent track record in the business, and is a very sharp observer. She's taken knockbacks and capitalised on them instead of crawling into a hole to lick her wounds, and she has carved out a niche for herself very effectively. This does mean, inevitably, that she's become formulaic with her themes, but it's what she does, she does it well, and The Mail would boot her column out fairly sharply if it didn't get lots of clicks, even if some of those clicks are from people peeking through their fingers and feeling like rubberneckers.

I don't think she's weak. I think she has a core of steel.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 31/12/2023 10:35

I haven’t read any of her pieces for years, since we stopped taking the Mail on Sunday, but I always thought they were still paying her for the ‘OMG, how can anyone be so OTT/stupid?’ factor that readers (including me!) enjoyed.

A couple of ‘best bits’ I still remember, were a) that she had to wipe all her bottles/jars of ‘unguents’ every night, with a flannel dipped in boiling water and wrung out, and b) that despite being utterly stony broke, one of her ‘essentials’ was £50 candles, from Jo Malone, IIRC.

Snowyet · 31/12/2023 10:48

She’s a click bait journo, the mail loves them, like I’m the most beautiful woman one too.
it’s for you to link people to or post on mumsnet or twitter etc being wtaf about rather than ooh that’s a well written article.

nodogz · 31/12/2023 10:55

When she was the editor of Marie Clare it was a great magazine. Some of the world events reporting has really stayed with me.

Her next phase as a tell all journalist I'm not so sure about. Yes, it's been interesting in a car crash way and probably lucrative but at what cost?

She's got some massive demons.

AllMyExesWearRolexes · 31/12/2023 11:03

@Woush do you mean Shona Sibary? She is a similar type...

ImFloatingInAMostPeculiarWay · 31/12/2023 11:06

ANightmareBeforeChristmas · 30/12/2023 20:29

The last time I was reading her column, some years ago, she was claiming to be hard up and about to be evicted from a cottage she'd spent a fortune refurbishing. It seemed extremely short-sighted to spend money doing up a rented cottage with high end designer fitments (lick of paint, sure, but new kitchen, no). I guess she must earn well as a journalist whose name is so well known - she's published books and probably got a celebrity-level advance on them.

Edited

I remember that, she'd spent some stupid amount on the property

Had to put all her nice furniture in storage. She has spent 59k "decorating" this cottage - new kitchen, underfloor heating, etc and has now lost all that.

Edit link added
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4677026-liz-jones-i-do-feel-a-tiny-bit-sorry-for-her-but-she-still-has-no-self-awareness

chompargh · 31/12/2023 11:06

Jealousy OP?

Daphnis156 · 31/12/2023 11:07

She sounds a nightmare, and would be unbearable to spend any time with.

ImFloatingInAMostPeculiarWay · 31/12/2023 11:10

chompargh · 31/12/2023 11:06

Jealousy OP?

Of what exactly?

chompargh · 31/12/2023 11:11

ImFloatingInAMostPeculiarWay · 31/12/2023 11:10

Of what exactly?

Show quote history

A successful career.

Seems harsh to shoot a woman down just because she's done well for herself.

TheaBrandt · 31/12/2023 11:11

Her documenting of her awful marriage to a dreadful younger man was actually hard to read.

ImFloatingInAMostPeculiarWay · 31/12/2023 11:15

chompargh · 31/12/2023 11:11

A successful career.

Seems harsh to shoot a woman down just because she's done well for herself.

Show quote history

But she writes about personal disasters in her life, she has no pension, no property, no assets, she's going to have to keep working.

She may be a paid journo/writer, but I'm not sure how 'successful' or how her situation is 'enviable '

Hoglet70 · 31/12/2023 11:15

I used to love her column in the DM then I just sort of forgot about her as all the RS stuff got boring. It never occurred to me it was Jim Kerr!!

chompargh · 31/12/2023 11:15

ImFloatingInAMostPeculiarWay · 31/12/2023 11:15

But she writes about personal disasters in her life, she has no pension, no property, no assets, she's going to have to keep working.

She may be a paid journo/writer, but I'm not sure how 'successful' or how her situation is 'enviable '

Show quote history

Stop slagging her off then

Grimpo · 31/12/2023 11:17

PuffyShirt · 30/12/2023 20:19

I don’t mind her. She seems terribly wealthy. Does she do more than her diary thingy?

She went bankrupt, didn't she? Partly because she wanted to live the life of a wealthy person without having the means for it.

Grimpo · 31/12/2023 11:19

Amplissimo · 30/12/2023 20:37

Well... we're reading her work, aren't we?

So she's obviously doing something right.

I'm not. I did for a time, years ago, but got bored quite quickly.

DarkDarkNight · 31/12/2023 11:29

I can remember when she was editor of Marie Claire and I liked her weekly column but I think she has a very tenuous grip of reality.

She used to talk about her country house and her horses and drinking champagne and her foreign trips then wail about how poor she was. Was the whole Jim Kerr thing fantasy? I can remember trying to work out who it could possibly be.