Anyone else bothered by magazine covers in supermarkets unsuitable for children

[Howgoesthework]

Hi all, just seeing if any other people are bothered by the front covers of magazines like Take A Break or Chat in supermarkets?

I've complained in my local Tesco's three times now about front pages with stories like 'My poor brother TORTURED TO DEATH in homemade horror film - His throat was slit for the camera TWICE' or 'We found poor Mum CHOPPED UP in the kitchen BIN' (and these aren't the worst headlines by any means). They have moved them up one level, and they are still completely visible to my 12yo, 9yo and 5yo. (Not such a problem for the youngest as he won't be reading it yet, but for the other two?!)

I really want to change this but I don't know what to do. I currently turn the magazines round or put them right at the top behind others, and I'm considering taking direct action with a marker pen if they don't sort this out.

Does anyone else have a problem with this, and if so, what do you do? The supermarket obviously makes enough money out of them not to care about the odd complaint, but I find it completely unacceptable.

Any thoughts?

I wish I’d thought about doing it to scale! The kids magazines are at their knee height where as the Take a Break and Chat are at their eye level.

Yes that’s where they generally seem to be - as conspicuous as possible!

I will try to take some photos this week too.

I don't also want my kids to see disgusting and disturbing photos in magazines, but sometimes we can't avoid it. We parents needs to be more careful.

Actually, I think you're right. Those headlines are shameful, stories of children being abused and killed being sensationalised. Seems to have crept into being acceptable and when you take a step back and think about it, it's really not acceptable to have he stories portrayed in that way.

Thanks YourHand!

Yes brokenharbour, I think it’s just slowly happened and it’s only when you see it out of context you see it clearly. And I agree parents need to be careful if this kind of thing concerns them PaulMorel, but to me that means more not leaving things like that lying around your home, rather than having to hurry children past them in a public space.

That Co-op is a very small shop with only two aisles. The only way to avoid my children seeing those magazines is if I left them outside the shop. The magazines are next to the children’s gift wrap and birthday cards and opposite the sweets. We don’t have large supermarkets where I live, and no car anyway, so this is what we use.

Saw a young school girl flicking through some of these magazines yesterday in Morrisons and I thought of this thread. There was no sign of a parent anywhere either.

Did you petition? @howgoesthework OP?

Heatherscot thanks for asking, I’m waiting to hear back from my MP and then will hopefully know what’s the best course of action. So I’ll post again soon hopefully! Still thinking a petition would be a good idea but will see what they say.

I'm with you OP (so much so I finally tracked down my lost MN login to reply). I think your concerns would be covered by this campaign: dignity for dead women, which calls for standards in journalism:

act.welevelup.org/campaigns/54

They already have a petition going. Also discussed in yesterday's Woman's hr:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000nlz

sensationalising the deaths of women and children for entertainment is not on and we shouldn't stand for it.

Thank you for posting this, it’s really spot-on and also it’s getting to the essential problem (reporting-wise) not just covering it up. I’ve signed and will give it as much promotion as my limited social media allows! Those who are still following this thread, if we all sign and promote it that’s got to help.