Emma Barnett is leaving Woman's Hour

[PuppetQueen]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68574142

I know she was a bit marmite when she first started at Woman's Hour, but I quite like her now.

I wonder who will be joining Anita on Woman's Hour, once Emma leaves in April?

I like Martha Kearney. On the Today programme this morning she was talking about managing swarms.

I switch WH off if it's not EB. I think EB will be good on Today.

I used to switch WH off if it was JM but I liked JG. Didn't like Fortunately but I cannot abide Now You're Asking.

The trailer for Now You're Asking is pure nails down the blackboard for me so I make sure never to listen to the programme. I cannot abide listening to Marian Keyes being so pleased with herself it sounds like she'll burst.

No thanks. I was delighted when she left.

I hope we don’t get five days of Anita Rani. I really like her in her tv presenting roles but not so much on WH.

Hear hear! She's very much missed. It's drivel these days even with being 'allowed' an extra 15 minutes

Google her father who made 6 million in holding trafficked vulnerable woman in prostitution, her mother a special needs teacher laundered the money.

In court emails found between Emma and her father mentions made about "Her father's whores" add private school, University.

Disgusting family

Feeling even more anger with Emma Barnett regarding her programme today about initiating certificates to women who have lost a pregnancy.
I worked in maternity in the 1970s and I have quite a medical family so we are well aware of that a successful pregnancy relies on an awful lot of our bodies working right and for some it doesn't, just as illness can affect us anytime in our lives. Nobody in the medical profession takes such things for granted TBH.
Miscarriage is a very different matter to still birth. It often means something is not right and nature takes it's course. We probably experience many very early miscarriages without even realising.
I had infertility problems and eventually did get pregnant with twins with one twin miscarrying at 13 weeks though at the time that was not diagnosed.
My maternity care was poor as it is for many of us not paying for it privately and I ended up with severe eclampsia at the time of my son's birth.
I was relieved I was still pregnant and grateful I had George and he was healthy.
Now if I ever discuss this I have people saying how sorry they are for my loss.
I had no real loss. I was relieved not to be having twins, I am a twin and am aware of the greater problems a twin pregnancy can be and of being a twin.
I would be far more in admiration of Emma if she was supporting those many many women who cannot afford IVF like she has been able to do.
We have so many of our young women now having left starting a family so late due to government policies regarding debt, housing and employment that never having a baby is going to be a much larger issue than nature deciding whether a pregnancy reaches it's ultimate goal.
Also what does this say about the decision to have an abortion?
I heard the programme Emma fielded about the prevention of anti abortionists being allowed to harass women at clinics and her utter shock when her guest suddenly announced that she had had one and rosary beads were thrown at her!
I felt it was clearly not in agreement with Emma's views and this guest was entirely at one with her decision when she was young and was not going to be made to feel bad about it by anyone including Emma.
I feel Emma felt powerless when she wanted another baby and it didn't happen and I agree that is not a nice situation to be in but everything seems to be about her, her endometriosis her IVF, her issues with the police.
She has been able to afford to buy her way out of those problems but not many of us have that option.

I hope they don't replace her with Amol Rajan.

In drag maybe? Perish the thought! Ha ha!
He seems to be taking up most TV and radio jobs going at the moment.

I'd love Kirsty Young to take over WH.

Woah. I had no idea about any of this.

I'd want to know a lot more about the context of those comments before assuming anything. Some people have assumed that Emma Barnett was somehow involved in running brothels. It might be that she, as a young woman, was raging when she found out what her father was doing.

Today is her last day presenting Woman's Hour. I think the programme will be much less engaging once she's gone.

I totally disagree.
I was asked to do an interview with her about the mandatory covid vaccination of just one group of workers in this country.
The researcher who got in touch twice admitted to me after I declined that she would not do it herself with her which says something.
I felt very guilty not being brave enough and the subject did come up on Question Time where a doctor stated it did seem very wrong to target just one group employed in care work. A lot left their jobs on principle as a result.
I was and am not an anti vaxxer but why one group of employees, mainly female should have their personal freedom removed but not the rest of the NHS care employees for example should have been a hot topic.
As for the dishonesty regarding her knowledge of her parents source of wealth I leave that you to make your own mind up.I only researched her in the first place because she seemed so toxic about men may of whom are listening at that time these days and especially the police in particular.

I love Emma Barnett, she's intelligent, articulate and passionate about a range of subjects. And she is forensic in her questioning. That's exactly why some people love her and others don't. But I for one, will miss her. The stand-ins during her maternity leave were a series of disappointments.

This.

Ha ha that read wrong! I didn't mean the police would be listening at that time in particular! I have no doubt that their incredibly stressful job has been made even more difficult by the war Emma Barnett waged on them almost daily during her time on the Woman's Hour programmes.
I read that Manchester police turned a blind eye to her fathers's business for many, many years and I wonder if it rankles that eventually one of the trafficked women was able to fight back and 'The Baron' as he was known locally, rightfully went to prison?
The police are told what to do and not to do more to the point by the Home Office and often end up as political footballs.
After the police investigations, emails found between Emma and her father apparently refer to the women as 'whores' but we have not seen them, I agree.
I just hope I do not find her so self absorbed on the Today programme.

Who is taking over? Anyone know?

Anita acts too much like she's presenting Good Morning Britain. Quite like her in moderation but she doesn't seem the right fit for presenting every day. Will miss Emma!

Anita Rani makes it into The One Show for women. Awful.

I cannot take Anita Rani seriously after she tried to pedal the "both sides" crap on gender identity. She is a walking embodiment of "everything's transphobic". She should be nowhere near WH as she has the intellect of a wet paper towel.

I would like Helen Lewis, even though I don't think she's much of a fan of Mumsnet😀.

I suspect her opinions are based on careful thinking and analysis; I may not agree with her on everything, but I don't think she has just jumped on a bandwagon, or engages in knee jerk sloganeering, and I therefore respect her. She would bring an intellectual rigour that would not be found in the aforementioned pile of wet paper towels.

I also think that she would listen to someone's opposing views and not just dismiss them out of hand.

I really enjoyed her new show 'Helen Lewis has left the chat'. I especially enjoyed is as she had Katie Herzog on it.

It seems such a dated concept to me, Woman's Hour.
It started when the majority of women were at home and some would be taking a break mid morning from housework, childcare, grandparent care.
Most employment had fixed hours and not much was part time.
Nurses and police worked nights but not many jobs were night shifts compared to today.
So basically we have a wider audience today. A lot more men, unemployed younger people and a lot more retired people and being radio 4 maybe a certain type of listener! Male house husbands exist today as well, doing the childcare.
If you are a listener and a full time stay at home mother you may well feel either very privileged or rather a failure not being paid to this amazing job but definitely under represented by the topics discussed.

I strongly feel that there should be a radio programme for men too.
Woman's Hour has made many men feel demeaned and sadly perceived as untrustworthy. 50% of the population apparently would not trust a male police officer ie. all women, I recently heard stated on Women's Hour. Not a presenter's words I might add but was not challenged either.
I think social media has in a lot of ways isolated people especially the younger population so programmes like Woman's Hour have a powerful influence especially the hour it goes out. Despite being female myself I feel the very one sided views on matters often espoused are or can be quite damaging to good relations between us and our male counterparts which is a great pity!

It seems such a dated concept to me, Woman's Hour.
Me too. I've not listened to it properly for years. I found JM annoying and felt that as I wasn't juggling caring for an elderly parent, considering having a doula, and coping with a toddler and schoolchildren, whilst suffering from women's ailments, it didn't apply to me.

There have been attempts to have a 'men's hour' type programmes but they weren't around for long.

It's all about ratings I suppose.

Radio 4 are aiming for a younger audience, or to appeal to new listeners.
I've been listening from a fairly young age, having never been a Radio 1 or Radio 2 listener, other than having listened to the odd programme and the top 40 countdown on R1.
I started by listening to The Today Programme in my 20s and found I started not switching over to local radio.
What appealed then was that much of it was informative.
Now a lot of it seems to be fluff and I switch off a lot.

The schedule changes have made me think 'Oh, such-and-such is on now' only to find that instead there's a repeat of something I switched off the first time it was on.