A levels and the Press

[fedsron2us]

After years of bemusement at that hardy media perennial, the annual A level results jamboree, I think I at last understand why it always seems to generate so much press coverage.

Forget the educational significance or otherwise of the event, the endless navel gazing about grade inflation or the fretting about the scramble for University places what really counts is that it is a golden opportunity for the papers to smother their pages with endless picture of nubile young school girls.

Normally pervy middle aged journalists hanging around school gates taking photographs of the students would be promptly arrested but this is the one day of the year they can get away with it.

Needless to say the Daily Mail leads the dirty old man stakes by a mile

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027334/A-level-results-2011-hits-new-record-1-12-grades-awarded-A.html?ito=feeds-newsxmlent

Even when I went looking for a story that covered the recent recovery in boys results I found that it was plastered with yet more snaps of young girls

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/872719-a-level-results-boys-close-gap-on-girls-in-record-breaking-year

One must imagine hardly any males ever pass their A levels

As they say a picture is worth a thousand words especially when it comes to revealing what our chums in the media spend their time fantasizing about

[LeftishBrit]

1. I think you're probably right

Nowadays more girls than boys do attend university (quite a contrast to 30 years ago); but hardly in the proportions that the tabloid reports would suggest.

[fedsron2us]

2. Apparently I am not alone in this belief

Here is a blog exploring the hypothesis that UK newspapers believe that only attractive girls in low cut tops do A-Levels.

http://sexyalevels.tumblr.com/

The Platonic Ideal for an A-Level Results Day story photograph involves the following in the order named:

1) Blonde…

2) Twins…

3) Going to Oxbridge…

4) Leaping for joy…

5) Holding aloft their results…

6) …But not so high as to obscure a glimpse decolletage.

I find it also helps to imagine Derek Jameson leering, sweaty browed and panting, as he approves the layout. But that’s just me.

On a more serious note Chris Cook of the FT has accused some schools of virtually pimping opportunities to photograph their girls

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54f49ade-bc80-11e0-adac-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1VQCs5l7Q

Maybe it is unfair just to blame the dirty old men in the press

[non sociopath skin]

3. Sick. But at least it gives them a break from the "hang the paedophiles" stories.

Not just the press. Our old buddy Bulldog has been having a bit of a letch today as well.

http://freebritannia.6.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=17092

He's obviously worked through his last DU incarnation as a sensitive Canadian ladee ...

:evilgrin:

The Skin

[Anarcho-Socialist]

4. Political Scrapbook also picked up this

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2011/08/happy-sexy-a-levels-day/

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Private Eye has been pointing this out for years:

Oct 12, 05

Which reminds me. Anyone see the gratuitous picture of a bikinied lovely in Metro today? Reminds me of a Private Eye piece in the summer "More fruity girls passed A-Levels this year than in any previous year", illustrated, quite obviously, with a pair of fruity girls gleefully throwing their books into the air.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/481706-ot-cheap-tactics-but-i-think-i-like.html