What The Victoria’s Secret Harassment Allegations Teach Us About Retaliation



Elana Lyn GrossContributor ForbesWomen
I cover leadership news with a focus on women



Ed Razek, the former CMO of L Brands Inc., center, hugs Kelly Gale, left, and Jasmine Tookes, right, ... [+ © 2014 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP.

Victoria’s Secret has long been criticized for a lack of diversity and objectification of women in its advertisements and on the runway of its now-canceled annual fashion show. A new report found that the work environment, from the top down, was misogynistic and rife with sexual harassment and bullying.

The New York Times interviewed more than 30 current and former executives, employees, contractors and models and reviewed court filings and other documents. Their reporting found that Ed Razek, the former CMO of L Brands, the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, was the subject of multiple complaints of inappropriate conduct. He reportedly tried to kiss models, asked them to sit on his lap and touched one woman’s crotch before the 2018 Victoria’s Secret fashion show. (Razek said the allegations against him were “categorically untrue, misconstrued or taken out of context.”) Executives said that they told Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder and CEO of L Brands, about Razek’s behavior but that their messages seemed to be disregarded.

“What was most alarming to me, as someone who was always raised as an independent woman, was just how ingrained this behavior was,” Casey Crowe Taylor, a former public relations employee at Victoria’s Secret told the New York Times. “This abuse was just laughed off and accepted as normal. It was almost like brainwashing. And anyone who tried to do anything about it wasn’t just ignored. They were punished.”
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In the U.S., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin and religion. The law defines harassment as illegal when, “enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment,” or “the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) investigates workplace harassment in the U.S. People have a right to report harassment, participate in a harassment investigation or lawsuit, or oppose harassment, without fear of retaliation.

When someone files a complaint with human resources or a manager, employers are legally obligated to stop the conflict, protect the employee who reported and launch an investigation which usually includes interviews and collecting evidence. At the end of the investigation, the employer should determine if disciplinary action should be taken such as firing the individual who was found to be creating a hostile or unsafe work environment.

However, one of the difficulties is that the investigation process is not always followed. Even though retaliation for reporting is illegal, it is the most common discrimination charge filed with the EEOC. Richard B. Cohen, an employment discrimination lawyer at the law firm FisherBroyles, explains that retaliation is any adverse action ⁠— such as being demoted, fired or sidelined ⁠— that happens after someone reports discrimination. “It's much easier to prove than the underlying discrimination,” says Cohen. “All you have to show is that you, in fact, made a claim or filed a complaint, that you suffered some adverse action at work and that there was some nexus between the two.” Although he says that there is no way for an employee to prevent retaliation, he recommends taking detailed notes about what happened and keeping any evidence like emails or text messages.

When reports of harassment are neglected, toxic behavior persists. Having harassment policies in place is meaningless if they are not enforced. “Rules are great, but if you don't have the skills to follow the rules, then the rules fall apart,” says Sarah Beaulieu the author of "Breaking the Silence Habit: A Practical Guide to Uncomfortable Conversations in the #MeToo Workplace." “If you announce rules and then everybody walks out of the announcement back to a culture of silence, then really what that's doing is it's empowering people who are perpetrating sexual harassment and leading them to believe accurately that they'll continue to get away with their behavior.”

What happens when misogynistic behavior and harassment is pervasive and starts at the top? “It's very hard as a company to do anything but clean house,” says Cohen. That may be in motion at Victoria’s Secret. Wexner is reportedly considering stepping down after 57 years as chief executive officer of L Brands and exploring strategic options for Victoria’s Secret including a possible sale. In the meantime, L Brands seems to be distancing itself from the lingerie company: this week the main photo on the investor relations website was changed from scantily clad Victoria’s Secret models to a picture of scented soap.

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Elana Lyn Gros
I cover leadership news with a focus on women. My book, "What Next?: Your Five-Year Plan for Life after College" will be published by Adams Media, an imprint of Simo...

The company that botched the Iowa caucus was formed only months ago


Alexis C. Madrigal App makers respond to critics, claim data transmission was the issue

It’s all fun and games until someone’s app messes up the Democratic Iowa caucus.

Before Monday's debacle, “Shadow” was merely a playful name. A small team of political technologists had given it to their company when it launched early last year, largely as a reference to their primary product: Lightrail, which is supposed to make moving data among different campaign tools easier. Light and Shadow, get it?

That might have been clever in a conference room. But now the name seems sinister. After problems with an app made by Shadow, the Iowa Democratic Party had to postpone announcing the results of Monday's caucus, throwing the presidential race into chaos, enraging Democrats and Republicans alike, and birthing a ton of conspiracy theories about hacking and other malicious interventions.


To damp down fears about the integrity of the data, the Iowa Democratic Party has emphasized the existence of a paper trail, a key facet of election integrity. “Because of the required paper documentation, we have been able to verify that the data recorded in the app and used to calculate State Delegate Equivalents is valid and accurate,” Price said


How could this have happened? At this early juncture, the Shadow situation seems like a testament to the faith that people place in technology and political insiders. Shadow incorporated only in September, meaning that a crucial piece of the Iowa caucus was in the hands of a company that was technically five months old. Despite serious warnings from experts, Iowa’s Democratic Party handed part of its election infrastructure to a highly networked start-up with a handful of engineers building an entirely untried app. The resulting mess shows the deeply interconnected nature of political operatives and the risks of chasing the newest new thing.

In preparation for the caucus, the Iowa Democratic Party wanted to update its reporting infrastructure, moving away from a system in which the state’s precincts would phone in results to the state party and introducing an app the precincts could use to simply upload the information. The party paid Shadow $60,000 over the past few months to develop an app called IowaReporterApp, according to financial disclosures. In principle, this is not a complicated application. It must send the results from 1,700 precincts to a central office for tabulation. The caucus runners had to take and upload a picture of their results, which were then supposed to be captured by the app.

[Read: Who needs the Russians?]

But something or somethings went wrong. Vice detailed failed attempts to log in to the app, and noted that very little testing could have been completed on the app, because of the short development period. In cases when precinct chairs were able to log in, according to CNN, the Shadow app struggled at the final step of the results-reporting process. A precinct chair told CNN that after the precinct chairs uploaded the photo, “the app showed different numbers than what they had submitted as captured in their screenshot.”

The Iowa Democratic Party appears to have confirmed that this is what went wrong. “While the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting out only partial data. We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system,” the party’s chair, Troy Price, said in a statement this morning. “This issue was identified and fixed. The application’s reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately.”



Over the past 20 years, small technology companies like Shadow have become an important piece of what it is to run for office. You need websites, digital advertising, and voter-data handling, as well as fundraising and voter outreach via text and email. While large campaigns can afford their own tech teams, most candidates and pieces of the party infrastructure rely on outside vendors, which supply them with software. Before this week, Shadow had highlighted only one client: the Hampden Township Democratic Club, in New Jersey.

 

© Jordan Gale / The New York T​imes Caucus-goers in​ Des Moines, Iowa

The company’s core team, led by CEO Gerard Niemira, is made up of veterans of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency in 2016. Niemira was that campaign’s director of product, working on voter-outreach tools. One staffer who worked closely with Niemira described him as “an exceptionally nice guy who knew what he was doing,” and said that the email and text-messaging tools his team built worked well. (The staffer requested anonymity for privacy reasons.)

Even if someone is not a grifter or a shady character, if you look anywhere in political tech, you’ll find a dizzying web of connections. The reason is that campaigns are short-term affairs, so people jump from one job to another, sometimes founding consultancies or small companies. Shadow has precisely that profile. It’s sold its text-messaging platform to many political organizations, including Pete Buttigieg’s and Joe Biden’s campaigns.

[Read: Why the Iowa caucus birthed a thousand conspiracy theories]

It seems clear that Shadow will take the fall here, even if the behind-the-scenes story of what went wrong with the app is probably complicated. The company fell on its sword on Twitter, apologizing. One crucial piece is what role another new and well-funded nonprofit called Acronym (another cheeky name!) played in the Iowa debacle. Acronym has received massive funding ($75 million) from Silicon Valley technologists and other wealthy individuals to build campaign tech for progressives. According to Niemira’s profile on LinkedIn, he was the CTO of Acronym until the spring of 2019, while also serving as the founder and CEO of a separate company, Groundbase, until Shadow spun up. (Both Shadow and Acronym have not responded to requests for comment.)

Acronym has muddied the waters by repeatedly revising how it describes its relationship with Shadow. In January 2019, Acronym’s founder, Tara McGowan, tweeted that her organization had “acquired Groundbase, the best CRM + SMS tool on the political market, along with their incredible team led by @gjniemira + are launching Shadow, a new tech company to build smarter infrastructure for campaigns.” It also appears that McGowan was, at some point, operationally involved: She invited interested parties to direct message her about the company’s “roadmap.”

Then, as the debacle unfolded, Acronym put out a statement running from the flaming wreckage. “Acronym is an investor in several for-profit companies across the progressive media and technology sectors,” the company said. “One of those independent, for-profit companies is Shadow, Inc, which has other private investors.” Sometime between last night at 2:34 a.m. eastern, when I took a screenshot, and this morning, Acronym changed the language on its website from saying that it “launched Shadow” to saying that it “invested in Shadow.”

Things happen with campaign technology. People are building fast with shoestring budgets. The apps don’t get enough testing. The volunteers don’t get enough training. “There was never any training on how to use the app or real-time getting the users in a room and seeing if they could log in,” said Sean Bagniewski, the chairman of the Polk County Democrats. “A lot of people were only getting the ability to download in the last couple of days.” Bagniewski also said that it wasn’t just the reporting app that failed. Much of the technology that the state party rolled out did not work correctly, he said, noting a glitchy online-accessibility request form.

Democrats had a famous flameout with software called Houdini in 2008. Mitt Romney’s campaign had similar problems with tech it called Orca. “We had time. We had resources,” Harper Reed, who ran the technology team for Barack Obama in 2012, told me at the time. “We had done what we thought would work, and it still could have broken. Something could have happened.”

But how the decision was made to select Shadow, what the Iowa Democratic Party asked for, and what the company delivered all merit scrutiny. The biggest question is: Why and how did an unproven company end up building this one-off caucus app, which seems entirely distinct from its primary work?

That’s one reason clarifying the relationship between Shadow and Acronym is important. McGowan’s husband, Michael Halle, was Hillary Clinton’s lead organizer in Iowa, and has deep links to the state-party infrastructure. For those upset by the caucus situation—particularly Bernie Sanders supporters who have long had beef with the Democratic hierarchy—the fact that Halle is now a Buttigieg adviser won’t do anything to tamp down their anger. Ben Halle, Michael’s brother, is Buttigieg’s Iowa communications director, who made waves tweeting out caucus result sheets that had an as-yet-unexplained pin number written on them. (I’ve reached out to Halle for comment and will update the piece if I hear back.)

Before the caucus mess, the Iowa Democratic Party had kept the app under tight wraps, refusing to disclose any details about it. Now the only way it can restore trust in the integrity of the process will be to come clean about how it settled on this app developer.

The problem with conspiracy theories, though, is that they assume high levels of coordination and competence. Look around and that seems far-fetched.

Jeremy Bird, a star field director with the Obama campaign, has noted that the problems with the caucus reporting went far beyond the app itself. People were downloading the app on the day of caucus itself, not far in advance. “That is a training/planning/organizational problem,” Bird tweeted. “Should have had multiple dry runs & zero people should have been downloading anything on caucus night.”

As is often the case, the technology that gets deployed doesn’t solve problems. It reveals them.

ROBOTS AT WORK AND PLAY A PHOTO ESSAY
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2020/02/photos-robots-work-and-play/606196/

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Democracy Drives Labor in a Hyper-Capitalist City


Growing numbers of people are joining unions in Hong Kong to pressure the authorities to respond to their demands.   

TIMOTHY MCLAUGHLINFEBRUARY 6, 2020

TYRONE SIU / REUTERS

HONG KONG—Angel was scrolling through the messaging app Telegram late last year when she saw a notice advertising a new union for health-care employees; her interest was piqued. As a 25-year-old nurse in the surgery department of a major Hong Kong hospital, she works long hours and sees how the facility consistently struggles with a shortage of workers. Nurses in busy wards skip their holidays and time off to cover shifts, and Angel worries about the quality of care patients receive. The nursing association she was a member of advocated for better working conditions, but the results were minimal: The main benefits were discounts on food and travel packages. “It wasn’t exactly about political issues,” she told me of the group.

So Angel—who asked to be identified by her first name to avoid punishment from her employer—signed up for the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance (HAEA), an upstart organization born out of the prodemocracy protests that have carried on here for months. The sustained demonstrations have led to a surge of interest in organized labor: Numbers from the city’s labor department show that one dozen unions were established in the final two months of 2019, the HAEA among them. In the past year, at least 23 unions formed and were recognized by the labor department. Their organizers and members hope to diversify protest tactics, adding the possibility of industrial action to demonstrators’ growing tool kit for civil disobedience. At a New Year’s Day march, union representatives courted new members with flyers and banners playing on popular protest slogans and memes. “Resist tyranny, join a union” was added to the chorus of chants.

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Hong Kong is a hyper-capitalist city whose government regularly touts its ease of business as one of its finest accolades. Unions here do not have collective bargaining power, and the largest labor group, the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, is fervently pro-Beijing. But the city also has a history dotted with labor strikes and organizing, events that have played a pivotal role in its development. The renewed enthusiasm and interest point toward an invigorated labor movement. Until recently, though, it was unclear how the uptick in members and organizations could be wrangled and deployed.

Read: Hong Kong’s perfect crisis

This week provided an early indicator that the fledgling unions will likely be a formidable new challenge for an already beleaguered, deeply unpopular government. Thousands of members of the HAEA have gone on strike to pressure authorities to close the border with mainland China, disrupting health services at public hospitals across the city. The workers believe that the measure is necessary to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, which has radiated out from China, creating a global health crisis.


Thus far, the health-care workers have received widespread support: 60 percent of respondents to a recent poll conducted by the Public Opinion Research Institute said they backed the strike, while numerous other labor organizations, some also only recently formed, have signaled their interest in expanding the strike, potentially adding bus drivers, aviation workers, and educators to the mix. The prospect of a widening labor push rooted in the prodemocracy demonstrations would be another formalization of a movement that the government has been keen, but unable, to stamp out. Leung Po-lung, the author of A History of Early Hong Kong Workers and the Labor Movement, told me that these unions mark the beginning of a new wave of labor activism in Hong Kong. “These people that are forming labor unions, it means that they have hope,” he said. “The labor unions are utilizing their power against a government that is refusing to respond.”

The question remains, however, whether this movement will grip the city to the same extent that past strikes did, most notably in 1967. Then, routine labor disputes at a cement factory and artificial-flower plant quickly snowballed into larger grievances against the British colonial government that ruled Hong Kong. Buoyed by the gathering strength of the Cultural Revolution in China, left-wing labor unions pitted themselves against what the academics Benjamin Leung and Stephen Chiu have described as “the symbols of imperialist and capitalist authorities in Hong Kong.” Numerous labor actions, coordinated in part by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, spiraled into citywide violence. Leftists resorted to guerrilla tactics, carrying out assassinations and a deadly bombing campaign. Police officers killed several rioters and at one point staged a raid by helicopter. By the time the riots were put down, 51 people had died and more than 800 had beene injured. The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions faced a temporary setback for its role in the riots. But in the decades that followed, it deftly maneuvered along shifting political winds, aligning itself with the Chinese government in Beijing, and has largely been absolved of its role in the riots by the Hong Kong government. A prodemocracy rival, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, emerged in 1990.

During Hong Kong’s current protests, calls have been made for a general strike, but such actions—unlike the demonstrations themselves—have been largely underwhelming and limited. The continued refusal by Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, to close the border with China, however, has spurred backlash. Her resistance comes despite overwhelming public support for the move, with 80 percent of people polled by the Public Opinion Research Institute saying they are in favor of it. Lam has argued that a full closure is not in line with World Health Organization regulations and could be seen as discriminatory toward mainland residents. As the strike, limited to nonessential workers, began on Monday, Lam softened her stance, announcing that she would close all but three border crossings. She said the strike played no role in her decision, adding that the effort would not succeed, and warned against people resorting to extreme measures. The partial border closing failed to quell the sense of unease and darkness on Hong Kong’s streets, though, and the mood worsened Tuesday, when the first death in the city from the virus was recorded.

Work-from-home orders and the cancellation of school until March have made Hong Kong’s normally packed sidewalks noticeably quieter. Supermarket shelves have at times been left empty by panic buying, as people fill carts with bags of rice, vegetables, and frozen dumplings. Lines for limited supplies of hand sanitizer and face masks stretch for blocks, with an estimated 10,000 people waiting in one such queue. Prison inmates who produce masks have been put on around-the-clock rotation to increase output. Riot police have been dispatched to stop angry residents protesting the border remaining open and plans to keep those possibly infected in nearby housing estates. Officials recently unveiled electronic monitoring devices to be worn by people under quarantine, a measure that seems pulled from a dystopian film. Some district councillors attempted to set up their own health checkpoint, and police say an unsuccessful bombing was linked to the border dispute. Every government that moves to bar arrivals from China—a list that now includes regional countries such as Singapore as well as nations farther afield such as the Federated States of Micronesia—brings new exasperation. Some are now concerned that Hong Kong’s refusal to shut the border means it will be cut off by airlines and foreign governments as they expand their own restrictions.

Much of the anger with the Hong Kong government about the coronavirus dovetails with grievances raised during the demonstrations started in response to a now-withdrawn bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. Lam, a career bureaucrat, has faced a string of familiar accusations in recent weeks—that she has placed servitude to Beijing over the well-being of Hong Kongers, that she has acted too slowly to stem the unfolding health crisis, that she has remained stubbornly resistant to popular demands despite opinion being overwhelmingly against her. These frustrations are the same as those that helped fuel progressively confrontational protests last year. “No matter how much we protest and try to speak to the government, they don’t seem to care about citizens’ health,” Angel told me. (Lam’s position is not helped by her unwavering support for the police, who have arrested and belittled medical workers during the prodemocracy protests, and whom doctors have protested against for excessive use of force.)

Read: Hong Kong’s protesters finally have (some) power

On Tuesday morning, thousands of hospital staff in pastel-colored surgical masks snaked through the Kowloon area of Hong Kong as they waited to drop off their strike slips for day two of a planned five-day action. The HAEA is calling for barring any non–Hong Kong residents from entering the city via China. In line, Sam Chan, a physiotherapist, was, like almost everyone else I spoke with, surprised by the turnout. “Originally, I thought maybe a few colleagues would be willing to join, because this may sacrifice our careers,” the 25-year-old told me. “We expect the government to punish us in the future.”

According to the union, more than 7,000 workers took part that day, representing about 10 percent of all Hospital Authority staff. Yesterday afternoon, Lam announced another round of restrictions, requiring all travelers from mainland China entering Hong Kong, including the city’s residents, to be quarantined for 14 days, meeting another demand of the union. The announcement came as Lam warned that the city was entering a “crucial period” to stop the spread of the disease, which has infected 21 people here so far.

Though the Hospital Authority says the strike has disrupted numerous services, including cancer treatments and work in neonatal intensive-care units, Ng Sek Hong, an expert on labor law at the University of Hong Kong, says the government’s reaction to it has been filled with theatrical press conferences of little substance. Government authorities, he told me, “expressed every contempt to listen to, not to mention to discuss with, the striking union on their grievances and demands,” he told me.

Holding a red-and-white sign reading save hk now, Eugene, a 25-year-old nurse who works in a hospital gynecology department, told me that Lam was a “slave of Xi'' who refused to listen to public demands, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping. She expressed the anti-mainland sentiment that has crept into some discussions about the border closure, saying that mainland residents would be untruthful about their medical conditions and travels in China. “All of the Chinese always tell lies and cross over into Hong Kong, and they can spread the virus,” she said. The prodemocracy demonstrations, she added, had the unintended consequence of dissuading many mainland travelers from visiting the city, possibly thwarting a larger outbreak. “We are very lucky because of the protests last year,” she said. “They think that we are so violent and they didn’t come here.”

Additional reporting by Anna Kam.

TIMOTHY MCLAUGHLIN is a Hong Kong–based contributing writer at The Atlantic.
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Phillip Schofield: ITV presenter comes out as gay

HETEROSEXUAL SOCIAL NORMS AND PERSONALITY CONSTRUCTS 
TWISTED AND MAIMED OUR CULTURE OF SEXUALITY CREATING
GAY MARRIED MEN TRYING TO BE STRAIGHT

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Media captionPhillip Schofield on ITV's This Morning: 'Every person I tell it gets a little lighter'

TV presenter Phillip Schofield has revealed he is gay, after 27 years of marriage to his wife Stephanie Lowe.

The 57-year-old made the announcement via a statement posted on his Instagram story.

"Today, quite rightly, being gay is a reason to celebrate and be proud," he wrote.

"Yes, I am feeling pain and confusion, but that comes only from the hurt that I am causing to my family."

Schofield presents ITV programmes including Dancing On Ice and This Morning, which won a National Television Award last week for best live magazine show.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image captionHolly Willoughby co-presents This Morning and Dancing on Ice with Schofield

The presenter was interviewed by his co-host Holly Willoughby on Friday's edition of This Morning.

"You know this has been bothering me for a very long time," he said. "Everybody does this at their own speed when the time is right."

The presenter added in recent times his sexuality has "become an issue in my head".

"All you can be in your life is honest with yourself and I was getting to the point where I knew I wasn't honest with myself. I was getting to the point where I didn't like myself very much because I wasn't being honest with myself."

"[Coming out] is my decision. This is absolutely my decision. It was something I knew that I had to do. I don't know what the world will be like now. I don't know how this will be taken or what people will think."

But the presenter said he is not ready yet for a relationship with a man.

Phillip Schofield's statement in full:

"You never know what's going on in someone's seemingly perfect life, what issues they are struggling with, or the state of their wellbeing - and so you won't know what has been consuming me for the last few years. With the strength and support of my wife and my daughters, I have been coming to terms with the fact that I am gay.

"This is something that has caused many heart-breaking conversations at home. I have been married to Steph for nearly 27 years, and we have two beautiful grown-up daughters, Molly and Ruby. My family have held me so close - they have tried to cheer me up, to smother me with kindness and love, despite their own confusion. Yet still I can't sleep and there have been some very dark moments.

"My inner conflict contrasts with an outside world that has changed so very much for the better. Today, quite rightly, being gay is a reason to celebrate and be proud. Yes, I am feeling pain and confusion, but that comes only from the hurt that I am causing to my family.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image captionPhillip Schofield and wife Stephanie Lowe, pictured in November

"Steph has been incredible - I love her so very much. She is the kindest soul I have ever met. My girls have been astonishing in their love, hugs and encouraging words of comfort. Both mine and Steph's entire families have stunned me with their love, instant acceptance and support.

"Of course they are worried about Steph, but I know they will scoop us both up. My friends are the best, especially Holly, who has been so kind and wise - and who has hugged me as I sobbed on her shoulder. At ITV, I couldn't hope to work with more wonderful, supportive teams.

• How the nation fell in love with This Morning

"Every day on This Morning, I sit in awe of those we meet who have been brave and open in confronting their truth - so now it's my turn to share mine. This will probably all come as something of a surprise and I understand, but only by facing this, by being honest, can I hope to find peace in my mind and a way forward.

"Please be kind, especially to my family."

Dermot O'Leary was among the TV presenters applauding Schofield's decision to come out.

"Sending big love to the Schofield and his family," he tweeted. "Stand up guy, heart of a lion. X"

Richard Osman of BBC One's Pointless said: "When you create a new entertainment show and start discussing who should host, the first name on the list is always Phillip Schofield. That's a fact.

"He's just the very best at what he does, and the public adore him. Looking forward to many more years of his charm and brilliance."

The BBC's Victoria Derbyshire added: "So much love for Schofe for his open, honest, dignified statement."

Radio presenter and singer Ronan Keating said: "Sending all my love and support for Schofe and his family. Incredibly brave."

Britain's Got Talent Judge David Walliams said: "I am sending all my love to Schofe today. I have always held him in the highest regard, and now have nothing but respect and admiration for him. Let's hope we are moving towards a world where no-one has to come out anymore, they can just be who they are and celebrate that."

Dancing on Ice star Ian H Watkins, who recently made history by dancing with his same-sex partner on the show, welcomed Schofield to "our beautiful rainbow family!"

Image captionSarah Greene and Phillip Schofield presenting Going Live! in 1987

Schofield found fame on children's TV in the 1980s alongside Gordon the Gopher in the BBC's Broom Cupboard, and on Saturday morning show Going Live!

He has starred in the West End in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Doctor Dolittle, and fronted TV game shows like Talking Telephone Numbers and Schofield's Quest before joining This Morning in 2002.

The programme has won at National Television Awards for 10 years in a row, including the prize for best live magazine show at last month's ceremony.

Entertainment reporter Caroline Frost told BBC Radio 5 Live that stars from the previous generation were likely have been told in the past that coming out as gay could damage their careers.

"You see all these young stars coming through and they don't have to think about it," she said. "They're fluid. They just define their own terms.

"But a lot of those older entertainers are having to play catch-up. They branded themselves and were probably advised 'Don't come out because it will ruin your following'.

"So they are having to catch-up and climb back up the hill of enjoying the same privileges that have come very naturally to that new generation."

Dickens: Publisher made fortune from book imitations

23 June 2019

 
LOUIS JAMES COLLECTION/GETTY 
As well as producing parodies of Dickens, Lloyd also published popular horror book Varney the Vampire which is thought to have inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula

A Victorian publisher who made a fortune from imitations of Charles Dickens' novels, which "outraged" the author, is the subject of a new book.

In the 1840s Edward Lloyd published Oliver Twiss, Nickelas Nickelbery and Martin Guzzlewit soon after Dickens wrote the books they were based on.

Prof Rohan McWilliam of Anglia Ruskin University has co-edited the book on Lloyd.

Lloyd also published the first novel featuring the barber Sweeney Todd.
GETTY IMAGES
Edward Lloyd (right) published Oliver Twiss, Nickelas Nickelbery and Martin Guzzlewit soon after Dickens (left) wrote Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and Martin Chuzzlewit

Although the novels were produced quickly to "cash in" on Dickens' soaring popularity, they were not flimsy works with Oliver Twiss longer than the original Oliver Twist, said Prof McWilliam, who specialises in the history of Victorian Britain, and has published Edward Lloyd and His World: Popular Fiction, Politics and the Press in Victorian Britain, co-edited by Sarah Louise Lill.

"Dickens was outraged that other authors and publishers were making money from his creations, but he was unable to get a judge to ban them," he said.

"What's particularly interesting is that many Victorian readers may have first encountered Dickens not through his own work, but through one of these imitations.

"There were many titles produced, which indicate that they were incredibly popular. And in some ways the plagiarisms could be seen as the original form of fan fiction."GETTY IMAGES
Lloyd also published the first novel featuring the demon barber Sweeney Todd, which was later turned into a musical by Stephen Sondheim

From his publishing house just off Fleet Street, Lloyd helped create the first mass readership for popular fiction by issuing "penny dreadfuls" aimed at working class people including Varney the Vampire, which is thought to have influenced Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Lloyd was also the original press baron - Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper was a Sunday paper aimed at the working class, and went on to become the first newspaper to sell a million copies.


Edited by Sarah Louise Lill, Rohan McWilliam
Routledge
240 pages
Description
The publisher Edward Lloyd (1815-1890) helped shape Victorian popular culture in ways that have left a legacy that lasts right up to today. He was a major pioneer of both popular fiction and journalism but has never received extended scholarly investigation until now. Lloyd shaped the modern popular press: Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper　became the first paper to sell over a million copies. Along with publishing songs and broadsides, Lloyd dominated the fiction market in the early Victorian period issuing Gothic stories such as Varney the Vampire (1845-7) and other 'penny dreadfuls', which became bestsellers. Lloyd's publications introduced the enduring figure of Sweeney Todd whilst his authors penned plagiarisms of Dickens's novels, such as Oliver Twiss (1838-9). Many readers in the early Victorian period may have been as likely to have encountered the author of Pickwick in a Lloyd-published plagiarism as in the pages of the original author.


This book makes us rethink the early reception of Dickens. In this interdisciplinary collection, leading scholars explore the world of Edward Lloyd and his stable of writers, such as Thomas Peckett Prest and James Malcolm Rymer. The Lloyd brand shaped popular taste in the age of Dickens and the Chartists. Edward Lloyd and his World fills a major gap in the histories of popular fiction and journalism, whilst developing links with Victorian politics, theatre and music.