Claire Verity being investigated by Channel 4

[Theclosetpagansbesom]

...for apparently falsifying some qualifications.

Personally I'd prefer that they investigate her for pushing an approach to baby care which went out with the ark.

There are a whole lot of statements from professonal bodies/trade unions speaking out against the programme on this blog and calling for proper regulation with regards to children being used on TV -

socialbaby.blogspot.com/

Hamish Mykura is the Channel 4 commissioning editor who authorised the programme.

Thank you for that link Elizabetth. Makes very worrying reading. Just so glad that there is somewhere these letters from the various professional bodies have been pulled together.

CV is totally off her head - either doesn't know the decades of research into the importance of human contact AND affection or worse - she doesn't care. All her stuff appears to be about getting the baby sleeping 7-7 and her work with various celebs - still - at least it explains why so many celebs kids go off the rails so young - life was evidently crap from an early age.

It was obvious to anyone working with children that she has no formal training or has any supervision when formulating her methods....everyone except the paediatrician Channel state watched and approved the programme that is......

bread and circuses, innit, tiktok?

i wonder how the people who subjected their babies to her 'method' feel now.

well, nevermind, they were mugs to take her seriously anyhow.

Did anyone see a series on for I think a week called TV Is Dead?

On Channel 4, it looked at the role of television and the place it fills in society now. Interestingly, the average amount of TV watched by people is 25 hours a week, the same as when there were just two channels, then three, then four - the actual physical "looking at the telly" hours haven't changed, but the range of channels is now massive (and the "telly" is sometimes a PC, sometimes a handheld jobby, etc).

So, now the range is massive, they need to come up with ever-more shocking attention grabbers, in order to get revenue from advertising. Indeed, even the nature of adverts is changing - they need to get the brand across in fast-forward, since that's often how people view adverts these days. Some skip them altogether. This makes the sponsorship of programmes a key feature and a very desirable thing for advertisers - people scrutinise the screen whilst it's on fast-forward, waiting for the Cadbury's image or whatever, then the short title sequence that heralds the restart of the programme.

So, the shocking programmes. One woman "in TV" said that the public want more and more detail. It's not enough, she said, to say that a couple are getting divorced. "The public want to see the first time you tell the kids you're getting divorced".

At one point, the programme showed what the C4 commissioning editor for factual entertainment described as a "quality" production company. They apparently always came up with good ideas. I'll leave you to judge the two that went into development...

Firstly, a Britney Spears documentary. The production company assured the C4 editor they could "get close" - they had guarantees of interviews from "the hairdresser" and there were mutterings of "the sister".

Secondly, a documentary looking at rates of STI among teenagers. A member of the production company said that he'd been talking to someone who said that if you eradicate STIs in a peer group at the same time, they'll be STI-free going forward.

So, the idea they'd come up with was to take a sixth form class, test them all for various STIs and post the results up on a board, like they do with exam results and, and I quote "watch the fall-out".

Remember, these ideas went into development.

So Claire Verity lying? Meh, the TV bods won't care. They got the ads paid for and all this "mum bleating" is grist to their mill and is a sure sign for them that their programmes are working, they're getting the eyeballs on the adverts that they need - they're laughing, I'm sure.

I would suggest if you feel really strongly about this programme and its ilk that you boycott Huggies (they sponsored it, after all). Email them to tell them you will no longer be buying their products (helps if you do buy them in the first place, I guess...!) - I have done so. I am disgusted that newborns are being used in this fashion - television's not what it was, IMO.

true story.

Here, here Hunk! [applause]

'I am disgusted that newborns are being used in this fashion - television's not what it was, IMO. '

I'm equally disgusted at the parents who allowed their newborns to be used like this.

I mean, who leaves a newborn baby to cry and cry? Or puts it in a buggy outside and then leaves?

Fuck, I had such awful PND both times around and I'd have thought a mother would have to be pretty ill mentally and in need of some help to feel so unable to cope.

I tried to watch but when that one lady who was doing the Claire Verity shit was shown catching her baby's projectile vomit in a muslin cloth because she was trying to overfeed the poor bairn so she'd sleep and then she stuck the bottle back in the wee one's mouth I had to turn it off.

That's just televised cruelty.

that is the bit that also sticks with me expat.

imagine if we overfed elderly people till they vomited so that they could 'go longer' between feeds.

imagine the national outrage and we would be put in jail! but it seems to be ok because it was an infant.

i don't give a shit about channel 4 (or about tv in general) I would like to see them prosecuted for putting this piece of shit on telly.

just read the Times article and have to say that despite and 'qualifications' this woman told them she held, they chose to believe her. So, it seems like when the HV association and the NCT etc, refused to be involved with this show, that this did not set off warning bells for Silver River.

somehow, i don't believe that line either. Daisy whatsherface also deserves to be in the dock and sent to jail over this tripe.

Interesting, Hunker
(I don't use Huggies but I emailed them to tell them I did and would no longer be doing so. Their reply was devoid of any sense, really.)
I simply do not believe that 'the public wants' to see more and more detail. Quality programming never uses that level of intrusion. We watch what we are fed.
I would like to take Hamish Mykura and sit him down and really patronise talk to him about his career. THe man is delusing himself if he thinks he's contributing anything of worth with this pile of shit.

someone mentioned earlier that the parents of the twins, should sue Channel 4 in light of these allegations.

I can't see how that could happen. For one thing they'd have to admit to themselves what a terrible f**k-up they'd made to the start of their life with their newborns. They'd have to face up to the fact that they never got to cuddle their new babies for 3 months, they never learned how to respond to their childrens needs intuitively, and they had to supress their instincts as parents all for the sake of The Routine. And an all night party

On top of that they've given CV glowing public endorsement. I can't see how they could possibly sue after that.

Of course they couldn't sue.

'I put it to you, Mr and Mrs Parents-of-twins, that you spoke to the Daily Mail praising the methods used by Ms Verity, and indeed wrote an email to her which she uses on her internet publicity pages, or 'website' as I believe it is called....that indeed you remember your three months with your babies as being (and I quote) 'stress free'? I also put it to you that as a parent, you alone are responsible for checking the qualifications of people working for you, and that any reasonable parent would have done this before going out for a meal, leaving two very small, two-week-old babies alone in someone's care, and that you cannot blame Channel 4 or the production company for your own very obvious negligence in this area. I also put it to you that again, any reasonable parent would not have permitted deliberate starvation and then over-feeding of their babies by a stranger, when they themselves (the reasonable parent) were in the room at the same time, and perfectly capable, one might think, of deciding to call a halt to these unsavoury practices.

'In short, Mr & Mrs Parents-of-twins, any 'negligence' or 'cruelty' can be laid at your own door, and Ms Verity's deception rather pales in comparison.

'My Lord, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.'

I so hope the CV parents read MN threads.

Tiktok, does Mia's mum post on C4 threads as a punter iyswim?

Mia's mum has posted on the Channel 4 forums to defend herself, to say that editing made it look 'worse' than what it was, and they have no regrets. She posted in response to criticism from other viewers.

is the link and you can search for Matt and Vicky.

Thanks for the link, Tiktok.

Yes, I expect if you'd come to my house when the boys were little, you could've edited together a sequence that had me forcefeeding them, spooning porridge into their mouths at 10wo and saying we'd be at each others throats without a strict routine because they were the kind of newborns who if you gave them an inch, they'd take a mile. Oh, yes, the footage was there all right...

Article today

The one good thing about the CV atrocity, is that people might stop relying on these parenting gurus as they realise they're just as likely to be charlatans as anything else.

Something else struck me the other day - how can someone who actually shagged her employer's husband, be considered a trustworthy, professional person? Even if she wasn't an advocate of child abuse, even if she followed the most lentil-weaving method ever, she would be an unfit person to be employed in a family setting.

And yet it goes puzzlingly unremarked.

couldn't agree more, LittleBella, it's amazing to me. she seemed proud but i'd have thought that relevation alone would have ended her career.

I hope this is the end of this woman's career. Channel 4 and Silver Rivers have acted incredibly irresponsibly.

I hope it's the end of the producers' and commissioning editor's careers to.

Heads rolled because someone misleadingly edited the Queen but this is much worse - those babies were subject to cruelty and mistreatment in order for Channel 4 to get contraverial footage and therefore ratings.

TBH I assumed the MJ thing wasn't entirely true.

Well, if I'm honest, I assumed it was a total whopper.

The Jagger thing is a true story . It was in the Sunday Mirror first, in 2002, and then the Screws of the World repeated it when she got into the news again in 2007.

At least, the papers did not make it up.

I suppose she might have made it up - but that would be even more bizarre than actually doing it, wouldn't it?

I mean, how does that enhance your CV in any way at all?