Does tabloid journalism evaluate the art of storytelling at the expense of the public role of journalism?

“If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. ‘Nothing in the paper today,’ we sigh.” -Paul Valéry

The term tabloid originates from tablet in medicine i.e., something compact and forceful (Merriam-Webster dictionary). Short articles, attractive pictures, easy to read and comfortable when riding on buses and trains with content focused on sports and scandals. 

A very simple definition of tabloids came from the British journalist John Ryan at a conference (‘Student Voice’) held at Havard (October 2000) and devoted to differences in the understanding of yellow journalism in Western countries and
Croatia: ‘A tabloid is a journalistic product that primarily deals with three S’s: scandal, sex and sports’. Another definition is by Selimas Miller who also explains yellow journalism practices in the West and talks about three basic functions of such papers. According to Miller, ‘the first function is to inform and entertain readers, the second is to sell as many copies as possible and the third is to attract as many advertisers as possible’ (Miller 2001: 283).

After defining tabloid it’s essential to define what is storytelling and why do people tell a story. Roger Schank says people think in terms of stories. They understand the world in terms of stories that they have already understood. New events or problems are understood by reference to old previously understood stories and explained to others by the use of stories. We understand personal problems and relationships between people through stories that typify those situations. Stories are very basic to the human thinking process. (Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence, 2001) Tabloid evolution dates back to the 20th century. The supermarket tabloid itself finds its origin in the fabliaux of medieval times; short tales told by professional story tellers and characterized by realistic detail and vivid observation using humor and cynicism to create stories of miracles used to explain the ever changing world. With the arising of the printing press, these ballads were converted from an oral medium to a printed one, and so began the life of the tabloid newspaper. The cautionary tale, also a staple of the ballad, fabliaux and broadside, is formed as an apocryphal tale of moral warnings, warnings by example of innocent victims of the fears of the day. The tabloid style is the most famous today because of its relation to the common man and it speaks in his tongue. Modern tabloids still have the same story elements intact where a story is told with reference to other popular tales to enable the reader to make the connection.

Elizabeth Bird observed that tabloid-style news interprets the world for its readers. Written primarily for fun and entertainment it should not be taken seriously. The tabloid journalism can be defined as combining entertainment with informational articles that allow the reader to have fun and still be informed. Playing on readers emotions, tabloid papers are designed to entertain but not enlighten or educate the readers. While the writing style is stereotypical and predictable, it often follows a divergent angle from the stories in the mainstream press, offering another perspective on the information presented. (For Enquiring Minds: A Cultural Study of Supermarket Tabloids. Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press (2002))

However the tabloid style news is condemned for decades as abandoning its journalistic and social responsibility to society. Tabloid journalism is generally considered to be synonymous with bad journalism. This assessment of tabloid journalism is not very productive from a social scientific point of view.

News as most journalists define it informative, current story. The information reported should be in the public interest and not something the public is interested in. However today material traditionally relegated to tabloid press now permeates the mainstream press.

The journalistic aspect of tabloid journalism has appeared throughout the history of journalism, and that elements and aspects of journalism defined as “bad” in its own time in many cases served the public good as well as the journalism considered to be more respectable. Tabloid journalism achieves this by positioning itself, in different ways, as an alternative to the issues, forms and audiences of the journalistic mainstream — as an alternative public sphere. But what is meant by an alternative public sphere?

Whenever a mass of people has been neglected too long by the established organs of communication, agencies eventually have been devised to supply that want. Invariably the sophisticated reader greets this press of the masses with scorn because the content of such a press is likely to be elemental and emotional. Such scorn is not always deserved. Just as the child starts his reading with fairy stories before graduating to serious study, so do the public first reached by a new agency prefer what the critics call “sensationalism”, which is the emphasis on omission for its own sake. The pattern can be seen in the periods when the most noteworthy developments in popular journalism were apparent. (Emery and Emery, 1978, p. 119)

Following Ju¨rgen Habermas, a number of media scholars have used the concept of the public sphere both to describe and evaluate the role of the mass media—particularly news—in public life. (The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,1962). His public sphere model has been developed and updated to take into account a number of different aspects—one of the more important ones being the changing nature of the media landscape. The most important political problem facing us in the 21st century may well be that large groups of disenfranchised people (migrants and immigrants, lower-income groups) do not feel a part of the body politic, and their issues and concerns are not addressed by political institutions or media outlets. In the face of this, it would be foolish to condemn tabloid journalism.

Yet Journalists have divided views about tabloid journalism. Some believe in embracing the news with meticulous dignity and gravity, leading to creation of many sedate stories believing it is the right way to practice journalism. Some scoff at convention and civility and cater openly to basic human instincts. Readers easily become addicted to the fiery prose of tabloid style. Tabloids are extremely undervalued and most media specialists do not recognize them as journalism. Tabloid-style writing is clichéd. They always talk about the untold truth and steamy exposes. Newsweek stated that tabloids were at “the bottom of the food chain” (Quoted in Hogshire 5)

Howard Kurtz, Washington Post Columnist, defined the six elements of tabloid style news as: A flashy presentation of news in terms of audio, video and graphics; emphasis on personal background of subject: reliance on rumor or hearsay; use of dramatic re-enactments; use of sources with low or uncertain credibility; and paying for stories. (Quoted in West 1)

Popular culture has surfaced as one of the main topics of scrutiny within modern mass communication and cultural studies. Journalism’s function of storytelling unites journalism with popular culture. Storytelling both develops and restricts the possible range of meaning. Audiences can either absorb the stories and formulate their opinions- occasionally the opposite of what the writer intended- or take the story at face value and support cultural cohesion. “Journalism often does foster feelings of collective belonging- based on class, gender, sexual preference, sub-cultural lifestyle or whatever-yet this is rarely recognized and even more seldom praised. (Peter Dahlgren Democracy and the Media.
London: Sage, 1995.)

John Fiske distinguished two types of news in modern media-official and alternative. Official news is the news of the “quality” mainstream press and network television. It extends from magazine such as Times and Newsweek to current affairs television shows such as 60 minutes or Larry King live. The tone of stories is official, serious, impersonal and is intended to create knowledge and conviction. Official news is what the empowered want people to have and believe to be true. Fiske defined alternative news as divergent from the official in its choice of events and in the way it makes selection, thereby limiting coverage of overtly political news. This applies to Tabloids. (Introduction To Communication Studies, 1999, 50)

Are we an audience addicted to tabloids or is there no choice since all news is tabloid styled? Steven Winn says that “Thanks to the ever-expanding franchise of reality TV, incessant Web postings of banal gossip and bedroom photographs, confessional blogs, podcasts, even the ubiquity of camera cell phones, we’ve effectively turned ourselves from spectators into tabloid fodder. For better or worse, we’ve entered the age of tabloid democracy. The talent pool has become as broad and diverse as the audience itself.” (Steven Winn, March10, 2005). We’ve entered the age of tabloid democracy. San Francisco Chronicle)

Do we consider the audience mere spectators who take whatever is churned out or are they thinking audience clever enough to judge for themselves. Ian Connell says that tabloid storytelling does not create opinions and sentiments that are popular or widely shared. Connell described the ways in which the telling of tales is organized, thereby constructing a framework for reading. He explains that Tabloid readers have significant powers of good judgment. They do not need to follow the paper’s running order, but can go strait to gossip pages and merely glance at other pages. Readers know what to expect what types of characters and what kind of narrative twists there will be. They may not agree with everything they read and may even consider the story worthless or out of touch with their own construction of reality. (Ian Connell (1998) Mistaken Identities:  Javnost—The Public. 5 (3))

The credibility of tabloids always remains an issue even though they serve the function to entertain, inform and educate. The audience of today is a thinking lot and they know what they get when they pick up a tabloid. The tabloid doesn’t compromise public interest because the public has choice and reads a tabloid because they want lighter stories, that inform and entertain.

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