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Three weeks ago, my news reporting class at UNSW was required to interview local celebrity Wendy Harmer in a news press conference style. Wendy attended our lecture and our aim as students covering the piece was to report on the new launch of her website The Hoopla. The Hoopla is an interesting site and one that many would argue (including myself) boasts nothing majorly different to its brothers and sisters otherwise known as New Idea or Mamamia. Overall it proved to be a rather interesting interview, regardless of whether or not Harmer let her guard down or not. I certainly walked away with a much greater sense of respect and admiration for a woman of which I had only previously recognised as a well known name. Following is the article I submitted as part of my assessment - happy days.
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Thursday 1st September 2011
By Rebecca Mason Fashion editor and opinion columnist Georgina Safe will perhaps now think twice before calling plus sized models both ‘fat and ugly;’ after the ‘whack around the head’ she received from the media queen: Wendy Harmer.
Harmer insists that online media ‘is the most fun you can have,’ and you can see how through the ease with which her opinion articles such as: Size Apartheid. We’re over it. reach out to the women within her latest project: The Hoopla.
With one of the most well known faces in Australian media, Wendy Harmer who has spent the last 30 years offering her opinion through the radio, TV and newspapers, has recently launched her new website: The Hoopla, aimed at the female 35+ age bracket.
Littered with Australian colloquialisms, Harmer, 55 exudes an excitement for her new website through the passion she displays for women alone and particularly those in her similar demographic.
“There are more women (aged) 45-65 than in any other age group…why wouldn’t you want to cater to these people?”
And that is exactly what The Hoopla aims to do. Fostering a balance between opinion pieces, recipes, and wellbeing advice; The Hoopla finds a creative platform that both connects and caters to mature Australian women, who quite simply, as Harmer puts it: “are not catered for in commercial talk radio and marginalised online.”
“It is a space I thought I could happily occupy,” and with the response of over 2000 comments on various opinion pieces in the short space of only three months, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
Happily married to environmentalist husband Brendan, with two young children, the online media sphere is perhaps now more than ever appropriate to her needs. Providing an example of the process of a typical ‘Hoopla’ story, Harmer described stumbling across fashion editor Georgina Sparks’ controversial article early one morning in the Sydney Morning Herald. Sparks who wrote the opinion piece on her qualms with plus sized models was certainly in for a surprise when Harmer had her retaliating article published and online within an hour, rapidly attracting praise in the form of comments, twitter re-tweets and even multiple ‘Like’ s on The Hoopla Facebook page. Harmer assures us: “Now that, is really fun…and is as fun as it’s going to get.”
With an abundant record of highs and lows, Harmer exudes both a vibrant and animated personality reflective of the decades she attributed to both the stage and microphone, yet simultaneously also an unassertive humbleness accredited to her unpretentious and at times challenging childhood.
“I think that one of the hardest things …is to actually get to know yourself and have the courage of your opinions and say what you think and not let it bother you anymore. It has been a journey for me to get to the point where I am much (more) confident in who I am and what I think about things. The only person I am competitive with, is myself.”
With prospects to further her name in the Australian political sphere, combined with her popular children’s book turning into a musical; managing The Hoopla and keeping it active in the online media world remains a top priority in Harmer’s eyes. If there were an award for ‘multi-media-platform conquering’ this one-of-a-kind comedienne/journalist would have it sitting alongside her best selling novels: Pearlie and Farewell My Ovaries.
Over many decades, Harmer has made a vital contribution to the Australian media landscape and through The Hoopla -her latest project- has empowered women previously unacknowledged in the online world.
