Tabloids

Tabloid has two meanings. First, it is used for a small newspaper format, roughly half the size of the ordinary broadsheet. Second, it stands for various concepts of popular and largely sensationalistic journalism. Not every newspaper, however, that is printed in tabloid format is a tabloid in content and style. The Christian Science Monitor, for instance, not known for being sensational, is a tabloid-size publication. Also, many of the free local dailies, like Metro, are printed in tabloid format, and only a few years ago, even several traditional British broadsheet newspapers such as the Independent, the Times, and the Scotsman have changed to the smaller size, preferring, however, to call it “compact” format. On the other hand, the biggest tabloid in Europe, the German Bild-Zeitung, is still printed as a broadsheet.

The origins of the term are disputed. According to the most plausible explanation, the name seems to derive from tablet—the product of compressed pharmaceuticals. Tabloid—a combination of tablet and alkaloid—was a trademark for tablets introduced by Burroughs, Wellcome & Co. in 1884. Within a couple of years, the connotation of being compressed was transferred to other items and also to a new kind of reporting that condensed stories into a simplified, concentrated style.

In 1900, Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, invited the English publisher Alfred Harmsworth, founder of the Daily Mail, to edit the World for one day. Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) was the new creative power of London's Fleet Street, having boosted the Mail within a few years to become Britain's biggest newspaper. On January 1, 1901, Harmsworth's imaginative version of the World came out. Half the size of its customary format, the new World was [Page 776]heralded as the “newspaper of the twentieth century.” For the English publisher, who called this newspaper edition a tabloid newspaper, the term did not refer to the reduced size, but to the economical use of printing space. Short stories, short paragraphs, and simple sentences were key elements of this new technique.

The November 9, 2000, front page of The Daily Mirror, one of Britain's largest tabloid newspapers, carries headlines mocking U.S. presidential elections.

Source: AFP/Getty Images.

Two years later, Harmsworth started the first modern tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mirror, in London. After a difficult start, it became a huge success. Appealing to the mass market, the tabloid offered all the attractions of traditional popular journalism: sensational makeup, visual images, and entertainment in various forms ranging from crime stories, human tragedies, to celebrity gossip, sport events, comics, and puzzles. The Mirror offered more photographs than other newspapers and presented its stories in a reduced and easy-to-read manner. By 1909, the Mirror was selling a million copies a day. Not surprisingly, new tabloids the Daily Sketch and the Daily Graphic jumped into the fray, imitating Northcliffe's concept.

The modern British press, measured by circulation, is dominated by tabloids: five national dailies (Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Daily Star, the Daily Mail, the Sun) and their respective Sunday papers have a combined circulation of roughly 16 million (July 2006). Despite the fact that the emphasis is clearly on entertainment and not on news coverage or political issues, due to their daily appearance and nationwide distribution, British tabloids are reckoned as an important force in public opinion building.

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