Tabloids and Sensationalism

Overview

The term "sensationalism," which first appears around the mid-1800s, is used in journalism to refer to titillating and unproven stories that aim to excite prurient interest in the reading public. With the development of electronic mass media, such as radio and television, it was also applied to some types of radio and television productions. Tabloids, which began to appear around the 1830s, were initially cheap periodicals of smaller size than broadsheet or standard newspapers. Tabloids and newspapers share a common ancestry rooted in seventeenth century Europe. These early news sheets were publications that combined political news, rumors, and slander. By the 1700s, these news publications had become so widespread and popular, that they were seen with great trepidation by the governments of their times.

In the nineteenth century, there was a significant rise in newspaper production worldwide, and a marked differentiation between types and frequency. Modern editorial lines appeared, aligned to a specific partisanship or ideological slant, such as liberal, Chartist, nationalist, and so on. The notion of "tabloid journalism" as it is now known truly began in the early twentieth century proper, when a tabloid was merely simplified, shortened news printed in a smaller format than broadsheet papers. Some publishers determined that the masses preferred entertainment to sober political content. Soon enough, tabloids were emphasizing sensationalist stories noted for their shock value.

In America, one of the very first tabloids was The New York Sun, which began to appear in the 1830s. It covered sensational trials, police reports, and "general interest" stories heavy on lurid events and fictionalization. Historians have correlated the proliferation of newsy periodicals to the rise, in the mid-1800s, of literacy levels among low-income workers and rural dwellers; in the 1860s, the circulation of provincial weeklies rose to the millions in several countries and the genre known as the "sensation novel" appeared as well. There were morning and afternoon editions of papers, many of which focused on salacious stories aimed at the lower social classes. Sociologists have determined that for tabloid sensationalism to be successful, it must have three ingredients: sex, crime, and a beautiful woman. Others add that there must be a "moral" to the story. A survey of tabloid stories from that era to the second decade of the twenty-first century generally bear out the regular use of this formula.

With the advent of industrialization and technology, the borderline between serious news periodicals and tabloids became clearer. The field of journalism acquired great cultural and political importance, and the profession of journalism elicited trust and respect. War correspondents, college-educated reporters, and renowned news editors brought a sense of objectivity and truth to their reports, covering wars, politics, business, and culture. Readers were clear on the differences between journalism and tabloid entertainment. As television became more common, news programs, until then commonly broadcast through radio and movie reels, became televised.

In the later decades of the twentieth century, pop culture acquired a greater importance, fueled by teenage culture and rock and roll, disseminated by the growing dominion of television. These events fueled the blurring of the demarcations between entertainment and traditional journalism. Tabloids prospered as periodicals dedicated to the exposure of scandal and willing to take risks to achieve this, such as neglecting to fact-check the accuracy of their reports. Nevertheless, they were also known to uncover some scandals that did have political import. It became common tabloid practice to dig ever deeper into the private affairs of their targets, to feature gory depictions of crime, extramarital affairs, celebrity gossip, and myths, such as extraterrestrial abductions and urban legends. In the 1970s, the first tabloid talk shows began to appear, gaining great popularity over time. In the 1980s, round-the-clock cable news channels led to a war in broadcast news demand, resulting in a weaker division between truth and rumor, as reporters had less time to fact-check details about news and included more celebrity news to attract viewers.

By the 1990s, network TV news and televised tabloid entertainment began to merge in style and content into a new genre known as "reality-based programming," featuring allegedly non-scripted stories whose scandalous content appealed to the voyeuristic inclinations of their audience, that is, the gratification gained by watching the pain, distress, or sexual experiences of others. Reality-based programs offer a wide array of formats and content, which include talk shows, court "procedurals" and police reality shows, wedding planning, and addiction rehabilitation programs, all of which tend to highlight the most dysfunctional elements of their characters' daily lives. There are also shows more properly known as "tabloid television," which under the guise of providing information, emphasize celebrity news and other sensationalized content. All these are also known as "infotainment" and "teletabloids."

Experts are divided about the current separation between "real" news fare and tabloid entertainment. Some argue that the division between what news is and what it is not is, to a certain extent, unreal, because institutional boundaries are inherently socially constructed and social constructs change over time. Moreover, government agencies have long engaged in numerous attempts to define what counts as news, without arriving at any concrete result. Nevertheless, consensus generally holds that real journalism is based on news meant to inform, rather than entertain. Furthermore, for it to be news, it must be fact-based, fact-checked, controlled by editorial professionals who aim to serve the public, use sources ethically and without payment, and veer away from gossip and rumor. Tabloids, on the other hand, are considered careless about boundaries between fact and fiction, heavy on speculation and gossip, given to paying their sources, and driven by profit imperatives. Tabloid defenders have pointed out, however, that it is disingenuous of traditional journalists to posit that they are not driven by profit motives, since they depend heavily on advertising income.

According to tabloid journalism professionals, the tabloid field has changed profoundly since the 1960s, in which some of the scandals could have, to some extent, an important political effect. By the early 2000s, tabloids had endured accusations of serious violations of privacy, by engaging in illicit practices such as hiring private investigators to go through their targets' private possessions, hacking private telephone lines, and receiving payment for "killing" or eliminating stories about potential targets of scandal.

Further Insights

Some experts argue that the differences between conventional and tabloid journalism are a just matter of degree. Entertainment values have had an effect even on serious broadcast news programs—a phenomenon that is most prevalent in the United States. Among the factors that make them more tabloid-like are flashy graphics, exciting music, product placement advertising and other such tactics. The main goal, critics argue, is no longer to provide fact-based information but to excite and gratify an increasingly partisan audience with endless loops of superficial coverage. The same can be argued, albeit to a lesser degree, about print media. Among the concerns that experts express about this development is the erosion of journalist ethics.

Tabloid journalists defend the lack of ethics of their field by arguing that they are in the entertainment business; therefore, ethics pertaining to fact-based information and the public good does not apply to their work. Moreover, many do gather information—they quote sources and cite facts—the same as other journalists and develop stories along conventional storyline structures. The difference is defined by the topics they cover, the questions asked, and the sources used. The difference is also the readership. Studies have shown that tabloid consumers are working-class with a low level of education. However, this may be changing. The New York Daily News, the most widely circulated tabloid in the United States, had won eleven Pulitizer Prizes by early 2020. Interestingly, while tabloid readers encompass an older demographic, reality-based televised fare is enjoyed mostly by younger viewers. These findings correlate with newer results from the current century, which, in addition, find that tabloids' discourse has become more stridently partisan, authoritarian, and conservative in style.

There has long been concern among journalism gatekeepers about the symbolic or cultural authority of journalism. The legitimacy conferred by the public on journalism, they believe, is increasingly at risk given the push for sensationalism across news publications and programs. According to a Pew Report (2022), trust in the news media varied depending on political party. Republicans' trust in the news dropped from 70 percent in 2016 to 42 percent in 2022. Nearly eight in ten Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents (77 percent) said they had "a lot" or "some" trust in news media. Distrust of news has, in fact, come to be cultivated by political figures and pundits themselves, questioning publicly the veracity of the news. Donald Trump popularized the term "fake news" as a response to negative press. Tabloid defenders argue that their detractors are anti-tabloid not necessarily because tabloids are less important or effective or trustworthy than conventional news publications, but because they serve a working-class readership.

Journalism in general has undergone seismic changes, for a variety of reasons. One of these, according to experts, is the conflation of news driven by entertainment imperatives and the cut-throat competition not only among increasingly few print-based newspapers, but also with tabloids themselves. Others have argued that such changes were caused by the surge of cable channels and the ensuing proliferation of cable news programs targeting niche audiences. Moreover, with the appearance of the Internet, growing numbers of people began to consume their news—including tabloid news—online and according to personal preferences. In fact, some industry observers posit that boundaries between "serious" news and entertainment have disappeared, as all have adopted tabloid-style strategies, in order to become more entertaining as a matter of material survival.

Issues

The question of the popularity of tabloids and scurrilous news, of gossip, rumor, and scandal, has long mystified historians, psychologists, and social scientists. Sensationalism is so gratifying. In their book Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors and Gossip (2009), historians Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern find that gossip and scandal have some social functions. Gossip is spread among small networks of people and rumors, unsubstantiated information, is spread across wider networks. A crucial difference, however, is that gossip involves a public accusation against somebody.

A public accusation—or at least the exposure of the culprit of a scandalous act—is at the heart of most tabloid stories. In other words, tabloids offer readers and viewers a massive experience of engaging in the titillation and gratifications of gossip. Gossip does not really dwell on politics or other matters of large import; it tends to deal with daily acts, such as human affairs and interactions. Among its historical functions in small communities, gossip was used to cope with jealousy spiked by the good fortune of others—especially in the face of personal misfortune; as a way to express hostility, and to make rule-breakers abide by the communal rules. In fact, as studies have demonstrated, gossiping has led to great social injustices such as witch-burning. In fact, the term "witch hunt" continues to be used to describe an event in which large numbers of people attack, verbally or through social media, a victim of press gossip. Tabloids do play an important role in society by acting as a catalyst of public opinion, albeit the jury is still out to the extent that its effects are either innocuous or harmful.

Another social function of gossip and of tabloids, according to experts, is that by becoming informed of the scandalous behavior of others, the self-esteem of media consumers is raised. Reading of the dysfunctions of others can make people perceive themselves as better—more respectable, moral and law-abiding—than the people they are reading about. This might be particularly true for groups of people who feel themselves unfairly diminished or disadvantaged.

Finally, tabloids tend to perpetuate toxic stereotypes. Although cultural mores evolve constantly through time, tabloid news deals with controversial issues without challenge authoritarian views and social conventions, including those regarding marriage, family, and gender. In fact, they are often found replicating gender and racial stereotypes. Textual studies of tabloids, such as Michael Pickering's Sex in the Sun: Racial Stereotypes and Tabloid News (2008), have shown that while tabloid writers do not side openly with any character in a story, they tend to highlight the conventional (i.e., white, male, heteronormative, conservative) point of view, implicitly perpetuating stereotypical notions of gender and class. By doing so, they comply with one of the social functions of gossip, that is, support the status quo and make sure to serve as both warning and punishment for those who infringe the established social mores.

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