TRF on Television
Since mid-2016 the CEO of The Reward Foundation, Mary Sharpe, has been making appearances on television. Here are some of them.
GB News 2022
Children and young people are experiencing terrible mental and physical health problems as a result of easy access to porn. On Safer Internet Day, Tuesday 8th February 2022, the UK government announced that the new Online Safety Bill will include age verification legislation for commercial pornography sites. This means that commercial pornography sites will be required to have a mechanism in place to check that potential users are 18 years or over. See our CEO Mary Sharpe talk about it on GB News TV.
The Nine on BBC Scotland 2021
The BBC III documentary “Uncovering Rape Culture“ hosted by model and former Love Island participant Zara McDermott was one of the best recent illustrations of how far porn culture is affecting young people today.
The Nine invited Mary Sharpe onto the programme to look more deeply into the links between rape and porn culture. After an interview with Zara McDermott, Mary joined Rebecca Curran to explore this challenging topic. More information is available in our blog on Rape and Porn.
The Nine on BBC Scotland 2019
The Reward Foundation was delighted with the opportunity to discuss its work when Mary Sharpe was invited onto The Nine on BBC Scotland TV. The item on Thursday 5th December 2019 was about the rise in sexual strangulation and its link to pornography. The issue about the Age Verification legislation was also raised and Mary was able to correct the misinformation circulating on the BBC and in the media at large. Implementation of the Age Verification legislation contained in Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 was due to take place this year, but has been postponed, not abandoned. In fact, the UK Government minister involved has confirmed in writing that it will be combined with the Online Harms Bill, so that access to pornography via commercial websites and social media platforms will be limited to people over 18.
The segment began with The Nine’s journalist Fiona Stalker asking the question Is unwanted violence during sex being “normalised”? It comes in the wake of a number of high profile criminal cases that have heard defences of ‘rough sex gone wrong’. Recent research also shows a rising number of young women are experiencing unwanted acts of violence. Is it too simplistic to blame pornography?
Studio hosts Rebecca Curran and Martin Geissler then interviewed Mary Sharpe, Chair of The Reward Foundation and journalist Jenny Constable, to explore this complex issue. The video is in two parts.
BBC Alba
The Scottish Gaelic community saw its first programme dedicated to the impact of pornography with the airing of it as a part of the series An Sgrudaire (The Investigator) shown on 21 March 2019.
Ruairidh Alastair is back with more questions about issues that affect the lives of young people, and he is seeking answers by talking with experts, listening to our panellists and researching using his mobile phone and his wits.
In this episode he investigates pornography addiction and what harm it may cause, in an age when access to porn has never been easier with high speed internet connections and mobile phones. The extract shown is Ruairidh’s discussion with Mary Sharpe from The Reward Foundation.
BBC Northern Ireland
Mary Sharpe returned to television on Nolan Live at BBC Northern Ireland on 7th March 2018. She debated the impact of pornography on the mental and physical health of children with the host Stephen Nolan with a porn activist and a recovering porn addict.
Mary Sharpe appeared on Nolan Live at BBC Northern Ireland on 19th October 2016. She debated what to teach children as young as 10 with the host Stephen Nolan and London newspaper columnist Carol Malone. The video is in two parts, each about 6 minutes 40 seconds.