Saturday, October 30, 2010

Is Gavin Henson most famous as a Strictly Come Dancing contestant or as a rugby player? On Tuesday, Newsround reported that he might soon be back playing rugby again.

Ricky: Good news now for Strictly Star Gavin Henson, who's waltzed his way into a new rugby team. Charlotte Church's ex has been doing more rumba than rugby recently. Er but by the end of the week the Welsh centre should be completing a move to London side Saracens.

Ore: Thing is, though, Ricky, he hasn't played rugby for more that 18 months. So he might need some time to toughen up again. He ain't gonna score any tries if he tries dancing down the wing - d'you know what I'm saying?

Newsround confirmed the move early on Thursday morning -

Leah: Now we might be used to seeing him in sparkly dance outfits, but get used to seeing Gavin Henson like this, in rugby kits. He's signed up to play for English team Saracens and will be straight into action once Strictly Come Dancing has finished.

Now we know that when a leading Welsh rugby player, Gareth Thomas, came out as gay last year, the story was ignored by Newsround. He's due to appear in a few days on 2nd November at the pre-launch event (pdf) for LGBT History Month 2011. Would Newsround ignore Gareth Thomas if he were a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing? Come to think of it, though, would Gareth or any other gay activist ever get invited to take part? On present form the BBC will certainly resist any move towards an LGBT-inclusive Strictly.

I've previously blogged about the reluctance of Newsround to cover youth democracy. More of the same reluctance yesterday when the UK Youth Parliament convened for a series of debates in the House of Commons. The first subject debated was Should sex and relationships education be compulsory from primary school onwards? Towards the end of the debate, Rosie Corrigan from North Yorkshire stressed the need for SRE to cover same-sex relationships in order to effectively tackle homophobia and homophobic bullying.

The second debate considered Lord Browne's proposals on university tuition fees. Detail of the whole session and results of all the debates are in the UK Youth Parliament Live Blog.

Debates are also available on the BBC iPlayer for the next few days.

No comments: