Tune in to turn-offs

A Norwegian lecturer has launched a campaign to get more ugly people on to the nation's television shows.

Trond Andresen, of the Norwegian Institute of Technology, said that journalists, photographers and TV producers chose attractive candidates and ignored others.

Andresen told the Bergens Tidende newspaper: "Ugly people should be spotlighted in the media in the same way that the media wishes to emphasise persons from ethnic minorities."

In response, TV 2 news editor Kjell Oevre-Helland said the claim was ridiculous and that the main point of journalism was to talk to those who had "influence and something important to say - often middle-aged men without particularly attractive characteristics".