Podcast Corner: Laura Whitmore's pickle after her British army chat

The Irish broadcaster sparked a debate that also veered into abuse and death threats when she tweeted about John Hume soon after she appeared on a British army podcast 

Laura Whitmore's Instagram picture after she appeared on a  podcast discussing gender issues around the British army.

Nationalism rarely gets a nuanced discussion on social media. So you could almost feel the sweat dripping from furrowing brows earlier this week when Laura Whitmore posted on her Instagram page about a new podcast she had appeared on. The broadcaster from Bray, Co Wicklow, who became a host on MTV in 2008 and is latterly known for her presenting gig on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! was wearing an army-camouflage t-shirt and giving a thumbs up.

She wrote: "Hear me talk about all things confidence, body positivity, being female in a male dominated industry & overcoming insecurities with the inspiring Ella, a soldier in the @britisharmy - Ella’s body changed when she trained and she didn’t fit into the stereotypical ‘feminine’ shape but she is proud of her body and knows to accept and appreciate herself and her strength." The post was tagged '#ad'.

Nik Studzinski, chief creative officer at Karmarama, which created The Locker podcast with the British Army, explains. “We wanted to create an open dialogue between civilians and soldiers, showing that even though their lifestyles may seem drastically different there is shared ground. Everyone has struggles with confidence - it doesn’t matter if your job is in the infantry or as an influencer.” Branded podcasts like this are well-established in marketing: Netflix, for example, has a number of podcasts extolling their shows, while, closer to home, Caroline Foran, who hosts the renowned podcast Owning It, co-produced The Home Stretch, 'the ultimate first-time buyer podcast', sponsored by Bank of Ireland.

But the optics weren't great for Whitmore. It didn't help that a few hours after the Instagram post, she was tweeting "RIP John Hume" and quoting a man who had witnessed many killings by the British Army in his hometown of Derry during the Troubles.

Two days after The Locker was released, she was explaining on Twitter: 

I was asked to be a guest on a podcast talking about body issues and being a female in a male dominated industry. As I have done a lot in the past. The other guest was a young female soldier. If this looked like me trying to recruit people to the army that is not the case at all.

She added: "I know to those who actually listen to the podcast they’ll understand but in case there’s any confusion I wanted to clear it up."

And then later that day, Whitmore, a friend of Caroline Flack, who died by suicide in February, was tweeting screengrabs of death threats and suggestions that she should kill herself because of her appearance on the army podcast. "Hello @twitter should we be doing something about this?" she reasonably asked.

Blindboy, meanwhile, didn't mention Laura Whitmore but did join in the discussion by tweeting: "Regular listeners will know that I've had issues with British Army advertising on my pod. I requested for it to stop but ads kept popping up, until I started listing out war crimes."

Podcaster Rosemary MacCabe replied to him: "It's just annoying me how readily people will pile on to women when they simply won't to men in similar circumstances. Before you knew about and addressed the ads, did you get a massive pile-on of criticism?"

He said: "I didn't recieve criticism because I didn't choose to be sponsored by them. They advertised on the podcast, to a few listeners in the UK, like the way an algoritmic ad comes on youtube. My listeners knew that it was something I wouldn't have liked, and they told me about it."

So what about the podcast itself? As Whitmore explained, it is mostly about body issues and will resonate with many women, in particular.

"I think it's really important that we don't judge people for looking a certain way, be it have a six-pack, be it not have a six-pack, once the person is happy with their body themselves," she says of those who compare themselves to the beautiful people on Love Island.

Later, discussing people who post gym selfies online, Whitmore is almost prescient of the brewing online storm when advising: "I think we each have a responsibility to ourself to curate what we see. So if you are watching someone's Instagram and it's triggering you and making you feel bad about yourself, unfollow them, mute them, you don't have to look at it. Follow the accounts that make you feel good about yourself."

It is cringey and questionable having such advice next to Ella's story of finding power through the British army's boxing offering, but despite the social media outrage, it's most definitely not Laura Whitmore declaring 'Your country needs you...' 

The camo t-shirt was a bad idea, though...