Victoria Newton
Encyclopedia
Victoria Newton is an English
journalist
and showbiz
correspondent. She is best known for being the former editor of the Bizarre showbiz column of Rupert Murdoch
's The Sun
newspaper.
, a comprehensive school
in West Bridgford
, Nottinghamshire
, where her father Don was deputy-headmaster. She went to Newnham College, Cambridge
.
in 1993 at the Daily Express
, and then started the showbiz beat at The People
. In 1998, she became an assistant to Dominic Mohan
on The Sun's Bizarre pages, before becoming the paper's Los Angeles
correspondent in 1999. Newton returned to the UK in 2002 to become the Daily Mail
's showbiz editor, and returned to The Sun in 2003 to become editor of "Bizarre" replacing the departing Mohan. In November 2007 it was announced that Newton would be leaving the Bizarre pages and had been promoted to Head of Features and Entertainment.
and Madonna
- were presented with their awards before readers had the opportunity to vote. From 2006, Newton started producing a weekly podcast
featuring many celebrity friends and musicians. Newton's column often contradicts her former News International
colleague Rav Singh's then-showbiz column in the News of the World
, believed by many to reflect an internal and personal dispute.
Bizarre's biggest rivals were the Daily Mirror's "The 3AM Girls
" Eva Simpson and Caroline Hedley, which is billed as the column packed with “proper showbiz exclusives.” Bizarre is billed as “award-winning,” but Newton frequently made appearances in Private Eye
's Street Of Shame, and she was also the subject of a blog called "VickyWatch", which aimed to correct the "many mistakes in her column. From basic facts to downright lies." The blog ended on the same day her promotion away from Bizarre was announced.
In November 2007 Victoria left her Bizarre column behind, replaced by assistant Gordon Smart. Victoria still works at The Sun newspaper where she is now an Executive.http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/article501768.ece However, certain members of staff have voiced concerns that she remains at The Sun, as they claim she brings the paper into disrepute.
Newton apparently supports Liverpool FC, despite the sustained boycott of The Sun
in Merseyside over inaccurate claims the paper made about the Hillsborough disaster
in 1989. She also refers to herself as a scouser
http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2007/06/joss-stone-likes-whip.html.
She also has been accused of glamourising domestic violence http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2007/06/theres-nothing-quite-as-funny-as.html, and fabricating and altering her stories.http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2007/06/victoria-newton-went-to-cupboard.html
She was embroiled in controversy over allegations of racism. An article on Hilary Duff
having a Bollywood theme on her latest video was captioned "Hilary Poppaduff". This is similar to the controversial racist remarks that Jade Goody
made about Shilpa Shetty
being "Shilpa Poppadom".
She has a well known dislike of Heather Mills; having written many articles that criticise the hapless ex model. She coined the term "Mucca" and then claimed that the public invented this item. Other articles claimed Mills' adult photos were too "revolting" to appeal in a family newspaper. Despite the fact the paper is well known for featuring busty lasses on page 3.
In early 2006 just before he was due to perform at the BRIT Awards
, Newton wrote that Prince
had re-directed traffic so he could enter a hotel without being seen. She then inaccurately claimed that he had his last UK chart hit (not including the 1999 remix) in 1995 which was 'Purple Medley
' a mix of his hits, when in actual fact he had hits such as 'Eye Hate U', 'Gold
' (his last UK top 10 single), 'Betcha By Golly Wow' and 'The Holy River
'. Her claims had seemed based on either a dislike of Prince or a play on his widely universally considered eccentricity. Ironically, Prince would gain a US #1 album and UK top 10 album that year with '3121' and his performance at the awards was generally considered as the highlight of the night.
Another example of her odd approach to journalism was to publish a 'World Exclusive' review of the new Britney Spears
album, which was based on an article from the Entertainment Weekly
website three weeks earlier, and leaked songs uploaded to YouTube
.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and showbiz
Show business
Show business, sometimes shortened to show biz, is a vernacular term for all aspects of entertainment. The word applies to all aspects of the entertainment industry from the business side to the creative element ....
correspondent. She is best known for being the former editor of the Bizarre showbiz column of Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
's The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
newspaper.
Early life
She attended the Rushcliffe SchoolRushcliffe School
Rushcliffe School is a comprehensive school in the Rushcliffe district of Nottinghamshire and is situated on Boundary Road in West Bridgford, one of the most wealthy areas in the county.-History:...
, a comprehensive school
Comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...
in West Bridgford
West Bridgford
West Bridgford is a town in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire, England. It lies immediately south of the city of Nottingham, delimited by the River Trent; this proximity means that it forms a continuous urban area with Nottingham, effectively makes West Bridgford a suburb of the city, and...
, Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
, where her father Don was deputy-headmaster. She went to Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College, Cambridge
Newnham College is a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick, and was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College...
.
Career
Newton started in Fleet StreetFleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
in 1993 at the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
, and then started the showbiz beat at The People
The People
The People, previously known as the Sunday People, is a British tabloid Sunday-only newspaper. The paper was founded on 16 October 1881.It is published by the Trinity Mirror Group.In July 2011 it had an average daily circulation of 806,544....
. In 1998, she became an assistant to Dominic Mohan
Dominic Mohan
Dominic Mohan is a British journalist and newspaper editor.He is the Editor of The Sun newspaper in London. He joined The Sun in 1996 working on the "Bizarre" column...
on The Sun's Bizarre pages, before becoming the paper's Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
correspondent in 1999. Newton returned to the UK in 2002 to become the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
's showbiz editor, and returned to The Sun in 2003 to become editor of "Bizarre" replacing the departing Mohan. In November 2007 it was announced that Newton would be leaving the Bizarre pages and had been promoted to Head of Features and Entertainment.
Bizarre
Under her direction, "Bizarre" was known for presenting awards like Shagger of the Year or Caner of the Year and various other awards in the paper's end of year awards. However, it was revealed that the 2006 winners of the "Bizarre" readers' poll awards - who included Justin TimberlakeJustin Timberlake
Justin Randall Timberlake is an American pop musician and actor. He achieved early fame when he appeared as a contestant on Star Search, and went on to star in the Disney Channel television series The New Mickey Mouse Club, where he met future bandmate JC Chasez...
and Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
- were presented with their awards before readers had the opportunity to vote. From 2006, Newton started producing a weekly podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
featuring many celebrity friends and musicians. Newton's column often contradicts her former News International
News International
News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....
colleague Rav Singh's then-showbiz column in the News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...
, believed by many to reflect an internal and personal dispute.
Bizarre's biggest rivals were the Daily Mirror's "The 3AM Girls
The 3AM Girls
The 3AM Girls was the collective title of the gossip columnists for the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mirror. The column is now called 3am and is edited by Clemmie Moodie....
" Eva Simpson and Caroline Hedley, which is billed as the column packed with “proper showbiz exclusives.” Bizarre is billed as “award-winning,” but Newton frequently made appearances in Private Eye
Private Eye
Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...
's Street Of Shame, and she was also the subject of a blog called "VickyWatch", which aimed to correct the "many mistakes in her column. From basic facts to downright lies." The blog ended on the same day her promotion away from Bizarre was announced.
In November 2007 Victoria left her Bizarre column behind, replaced by assistant Gordon Smart. Victoria still works at The Sun newspaper where she is now an Executive.http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/article501768.ece However, certain members of staff have voiced concerns that she remains at The Sun, as they claim she brings the paper into disrepute.
Criticisms
Among other claims Newton apparently reduces her year of birth by ten years, to hide actual age from "aimed at young and trendy" column readers and uses the terms "I can exclusively reveal..." when a more accurate description would be "I have received a press release" or "I have read this on the internet." She has occasionally missed items when proofreading.http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2007/09/even-subs-dont-read-bizarre.htmlNewton apparently supports Liverpool FC, despite the sustained boycott of The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
in Merseyside over inaccurate claims the paper made about the Hillsborough disaster
Hillsborough disaster
The Hillsborough disaster was a human crush that occurred on 15 April 1989 at Hillsborough, a football stadium, the home of Sheffield Wednesday F.C. in Sheffield, England, resulting in the deaths of 96 people, and 766 being injured, all fans of Liverpool F.C....
in 1989. She also refers to herself as a scouser
http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2007/06/joss-stone-likes-whip.html.
She also has been accused of glamourising domestic violence http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2007/06/theres-nothing-quite-as-funny-as.html, and fabricating and altering her stories.http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2007/06/victoria-newton-went-to-cupboard.html
She was embroiled in controversy over allegations of racism. An article on Hilary Duff
Hilary Duff
Hilary Erhard Duff is an American actress, singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, and author. After working in local theater plays and television commercials in her childhood, she achieved fame playing the title role in the Disney Channel television series Lizzie McGuire. She also reprised her role in...
having a Bollywood theme on her latest video was captioned "Hilary Poppaduff". This is similar to the controversial racist remarks that Jade Goody
Jade Goody
Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody was an English celebrity. She came into the public spotlight while appearing on the third series of the Channel 4 reality TV programme Big Brother in 2002, an appearance which led to her own television programmes and the launch of her own products after her eviction from...
made about Shilpa Shetty
Shilpa Shetty
Shilpa Shetty is an Indian film actress and model. Since making her debut in the film Baazigar , she has appeared in nearly 40 Bollywood, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films, her first leading role being in the 1994 Aag. Although she has been through years of decline during her career, Shetty has been...
being "Shilpa Poppadom".
She has a well known dislike of Heather Mills; having written many articles that criticise the hapless ex model. She coined the term "Mucca" and then claimed that the public invented this item. Other articles claimed Mills' adult photos were too "revolting" to appeal in a family newspaper. Despite the fact the paper is well known for featuring busty lasses on page 3.
In early 2006 just before he was due to perform at the BRIT Awards
Brit Awards
The Brit Awards are the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain" or "Britannia", but subsequently became a backronym for British Record Industry Trust...
, Newton wrote that Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
had re-directed traffic so he could enter a hotel without being seen. She then inaccurately claimed that he had his last UK chart hit (not including the 1999 remix) in 1995 which was 'Purple Medley
Purple Medley
"Purple Medley" is a song by Prince from 1995. There is no album accompanying the single. The track is a mix of many hits and well-known songs from Prince's career. Some of the pieces of music are samples, while others are re-recorded for the mix. Some of the additional instrumentation is credited...
' a mix of his hits, when in actual fact he had hits such as 'Eye Hate U', 'Gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
' (his last UK top 10 single), 'Betcha By Golly Wow' and 'The Holy River
The Holy River
"The Holy River" is a song from Prince's 1996 album, Emancipation....
'. Her claims had seemed based on either a dislike of Prince or a play on his widely universally considered eccentricity. Ironically, Prince would gain a US #1 album and UK top 10 album that year with '3121' and his performance at the awards was generally considered as the highlight of the night.
Another example of her odd approach to journalism was to publish a 'World Exclusive' review of the new Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...
album, which was based on an article from the Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
website three weeks earlier, and leaked songs uploaded to YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.