"Tabloid journalism" never caught on in the US, it seems. The best information I can find suggests that the top ten "alternative newspapers" in the US have a circulation totalling about half a million. That's five times smaller than the UK's Sun newspaper. So, if you aren't in that half-million group, I'll just briefly explain what Tabloids are all about - gossip, celebrity, opinion that's usually not very well-informed, all that sort of stuff. Usually headlines that don't leave much secret as to what the editors think about the story - the classic example being "GOTCHA!" after the sinking of an Argentinian ship in the Falklands War of 1982 (323 people died).
So perhaps the Americans are lucky that this sort of paper isn't that common over there. In the UK we have several of them: Sun, Daily Mirror, Star, even to some extent the Daily Mail. And these papers have a combined circulation of 7.5 million daily. Which is a lot. So the "gutter press", filled with stories that might be regarded as fairly trivial, are very popular over here.
We also saw in the last post that the stuff written in newspapers has the power to sway public opinion and effect real change, and not just in small ways either. Those of you who have been following the news might know that Rupert Murdoch, the media magnate, is under pressure in the UK because one of his UK papers (or all of them?) were using illegal means to gather news (on celebs, gossip, ill-informed opinion etc. ...). And he has news companies across the globe - as well as many of the UK's top-selling papers, he also owns many of the papers in Australia; in the US, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News; and he was also trying to take over UK's Sky News.
"This guy owns the media," people say, and they have a point, and Murdoch's also accused of manipulating news to suit his politics. This may or may not be true, we aren't here to discuss that. But in the internet age anyone trying to control the news has a much tougher job, simply because there are more places to get your info from these days.
These two points are linked because, in the UK, it took one person to start both of these traditions up. And he really did use his papers to try and change things and interfere with politics. Perhaps it was because Western Democracy only really got going in the 1920's. Anyway...
Alfred Harmsworth started his long road to power way back in the 1880's, setting up some cheap but successful comics, and used the profits to buy more and more papers. In 1896 he started the first newspaper that resembled the modern tabloid, the Daily Mail. Compared to other papers of the time it probably was a much more exciting read and became a hit pretty much from day one (it was also cheaper than all other papers, which helped). It took six years to become the best-selling paper in the world.
Harmsworth followed this success with his Daily Mirror, which after a stuttering start became the second-biggest paper in the UK; and he went on to buy The Times, The SUnday Times and The Observer. By now this meant that Harmsworth, or Lord Northcliffe as he became in 1904, owned well over 50% of the media in the UK - probably more like three-quarters. Remember, this is before radio, TV, internet, so there was basically no other way to spread information than through Northcliffe's papers. Now he started to make use of this influence.
It started as early as 1899, in the Boer War, with an appeal to raise money for British soldiers' families, but by 1910 and onwards it took a more sinister tone. Articles, short stories, features would come out in his papers that were very "anti-German", and this would certainly have some role in the response the English had to the outbreak of War.
From the small and sinister, to the huge and powerful. In 1915, Northcliffe's papers actually destroyed the British government and helped to set up Lloyd George as Prime Minister. That is serious power.
Northcliffe died in 1922 but he set up a tradition that lasted for a long time, where newspapers would try to influence the news rather than just report it. His brother Lord Rothermere fought to support the policy of appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930's, while another press baron, Lord Beaverbrook, used his Daily Express to expose the relationship between Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.
It's a scary thought that the media influences world events. These days, it's more accurate to say that they try - things are too open for it to work any more. But Lord Northcliffe founded a new way of reporting the news, and it sells well even today.