Posted in Video, Wisconsin

WKBT morning host Jennifer Livingston shares her experience with a bully (VIDEO)

   October 2, 2012

This video speaks for itself:

As Jennifer Livingston noted in her editorial, October is National Bullying Prevention Month.

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19 thoughts on “WKBT morning host Jennifer Livingston shares her experience with a bully (VIDEO)”

  1. Go Jennifer! Way to call it what it is: bullying. I’ve seen too many anorexic/bulimic high school girls paralyzed by the possibility of putting on a pound and being so self-absorbed with their weight that they never develop their talents or the inner beauty that is a far greater influence on those around them. I applaud you!

  2. I wanted to let you know that you are beautiful and this man is the sick one. He has a poorly differentiated self. The less developed a person’s self, the more he tries to control the functioning of others. He either depends so heavily on the acceptance and approval of others or he becomes dogmatic and, thus, a bully, proclaiming what others should be like and pressuring them to conform. I learned this from The Bowen Center. You can find more ammo at http://www.thebowencenter.org/pages/conceptds.html.
    I am so glad that you are in a position to be able to help others. I was so appalled when I heard the letter he wrote. When I saw you, I was even more enraged. This country is obsessed with a very unhealthy thinness. We applaud the thinnest and think that somehow they are better than a person of normal size. God forbid if one is heavy. How shallow. How twisted. How cruel to the very beauty of womanhood. It’s an outrageous attack on all of motherhood.
    I salute you Jennifer.

  4. Jennifer
    People come in all shapes and sizes. This guy is ignorant and a bully! You are a true inspiration to young girls. It’s not what is on the outside of people, but on the inside ….although I must say that you are a beautiful woman.
    As. a mother and grandmother….your message is such an important one.. People are different and that is what makes each and everyone of us special.
    This guy might be thin; but truly NOT a very nice person

  5. Jennifer,

    This man is rude and cruel. I am a plastic surgeon, Have been for 24yrs. I have a huge thyroid condition and know exactly what you are going through. I weight 309 lbs, I do not eat much at all but the weight stays on me and no matter what I do It will not leave me. I walk 3 days a week and Zumba twice a week.

    This man needed to do his homework before he ran his chops. You have my support and congrats for taking a stand on this. My eldest child at age 10 was told she was fat by a school teacher in her school district in Flint Michigan. She had the same condition I have. Her heart was broken, December of that year she passed away, mainly due to a doctor thinking her sudden illness was due to her weight. He missed Pneumonia and she passed. I was divorced from her mother at this time. My heart is broke and will always be broke. The taunts you get for our health issues are wrong and NO WE WILL NOT STAND AND TAKE IT. We have to fight back. Good Job Jennifer.

    DJ

  6. Thank you Jennifer! It is about time that someone stands up for this subject! Where I work this same situation happened, instead of an email it was a printed note left on the overweight bullied gals desk. After she was seen visibly upset, a coworker got involved and encouraged her to go to management and our union. They looked into it but NOTHING, NOTHING, they didn’t find out who did this and they could have. This is a place of employment that is International, and has strict ‘Code of Conduct’, yet the powers that be did not think it was that important to continue to investigate! As far as I am concerned, this company is just as guilty of bulling as the person who wrote the note about the employee how fat she was and had no business representing our workers in a health video. If the note said something nasty about anything else they would have been all over it. You are talented and articulate and a pleasure to watch, thank you for opening up this long over due can of worms.

  7. I know and see a different Jennifer.

    I first was introduced to her when she was the TV weather person presenting the morning forecast when the camera guy panned down in an unplanned event to her feet sans shoes. Well, a hearty laugh was enjoyed by all including Ms. Livingston.

    Since then, Jennifer has moved on in her career and life, but I will always view her as a person with a great sense of humor able to stand on her own two feet,with or without shoes, and a competent and versatile reporter.

    I wish Jennifer and her family the best.

  8. I never cease to be amazed at the level of brainwashing in this country regarding weight. It is truly sad that something as trivial as a person’s weight can motivate a viewer to write such a nasty comment. To me, it’s a societal reflection. Our values are askew to say the least. As far as bad weight examples go, what about the ‘Skinny Minnies’ that grace the world’s designer runways and hollywood movies? Is that ‘big head blond’ look healthy? Their bodies are unbalanced. Many times looking too small for their own heads! I am a senior citizen that’s never had a weight problem; however, I resent the emphasis placed on being a size 6 or less in this country and elsewhere. Professional women whose careers demand such unnatural dress sizes that they veritably must ‘sniff’ their food to avoid calories should be pitied. For many, maintaining that tiny size is a pleasure-robbing daily struggle.
    Size is quite subjective. Jennifer Livingston would have passed an audition as a Rubens model way ahead of so-called ‘beautiful people’ today. Healthy lies somewhere in the middle of today’s standard for weight and the 17th century. But no one should be personally blasted on a public platform such as this without having solicited it. i.e. ‘What do you think about my weight’?
    At any rate, Jennifer’s critic has provided her an opportunity to prove the greater point. She has responded with grace, style, honesty and yes, rightly placed indignation. Qualities that truly count. You go, girl!!

  10. Jennifer is not only beautiful inside AND out, but she’s one real class act. Kudos to you Ms. Livingston

    2. I’m more overweight than Jennifer Livingston is, and I’ve been bullied about my weight a few times. I’m quite thick-skinned myself, so I usually ignore people who try to bully me and move on as if nothing happened.

  12. It surely was rude, but does one e-mail constitute bullying? I don’t believe it included any threats, harrassing language, or name calling. I always thought bullying meant threats, intimidation, etc. This was just a guy being a jerk, not that I excuse it. But let’s not weaken the problem of real bullying with this. People in the media and the public eye can expect all sorts of negative comments and I would expect she would have a thicker skin. This is not to say I condone nasty comments, especially about physical appearance. (In fact I think she looks just great, but that is irrelevant to the point.)

    If you yell at an athlete as they come off the field after a bad game, does that constitute bullying? I would say more so than this e-mail incident. Even the Capitol protesters have been more guilty of bullying than this.

    Finally, what is the difference between Michelle Obama calling all of us fat and this guy individualizing it? What if the e-mail said she was setting a bad example by smoking or some other “approved” problem? We can count on the government to bully all of us about those things!

  13. FMSN…bullying usually is defined by repeated intimidation or assault either physical, verbal or emotional. But if on the first sign of a situation like this, the target should speak up and halt it. That’s what happened here. Thankfully the situation won’t continue.

    The fact that email was used makes it more personal…much more personal than yelling at an athlete coming off the field…he/she may not even register you are there in a game situation.

    1. Ed, I can only imagine the amount of hate mail some media personalities receive on a daily basis. Do you think they should all take to the airwaves and read them? The now esteemed senator from Minnesota once wrote a book titled “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.” That’s worse language than anything this guy wrote in an e-mail. Does selling thousands or millions of that book to the public constitute bullying worse than a single private e-mail?

      Again, I don’t condone any of it. I know that a few times the personal appearances of conservatives have been made fun of on this blog. I don’t like it, but I think it can also be blown out of proportion.

      1. “Ed, I can only imagine the amount of hate mail some media personalities receive on a daily basis.” I can imagine…you should see my Blogging Blue email account.

        “Do you think they should all take to the airwaves and read them?”
        Probably not but it would be their right to do so…

        ‘The now esteemed senator from Minnesota once wrote a book titled “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.”’ You and I both know that is a far different situation in the realm of publishing, politics and satire than this email. I wouldn’t have titled something quite like that.

        “I know that a few times the personal appearances of conservatives have been made fun of on this blog” I don’t believe I’ve done that personally and don’t agree with it…and have objected to a similar situation in the background about another blog site.

        1. I don’t see the difference between Franken and this e-mail, other than Franken made his comments public and in this instance she chose to make the comments public. Are you saying it would have been a different situation if this guy published a satire blog titled “Jennifer Livingston is a big fat idiot”? Was David Letterman calling Sarah Palin a “slutty flight attendant” also a different situation?

  14. I am not going to write a blog about it but here might be a good time to mention it. There have been a number of suggested ‘blogs’, ‘posts’, or ‘exposes’ about hobbies or personal interests about candidates on both sides of the aisle with the intent to ridicule them. There is currently an active advertising campaign in the northeast about a candidate is a internet gamer. This kinda stuff is puerile and beneath legitimate political discourse. And I am sure there are a lot more around…but I am not going to go digging for them. But this stuff just shouldn’t be tolerated by the media, the campaigns, or more importantly the electorate.

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