In countries such as France and Italy, small-format newspapers uphold some of the most serious, high-minded ideals of journalism. However, in the English-speaking world, the word 'tabloid' has come to stand for something quite different: a flashy and sometimes sleazy approach in all sorts of media. Michael Foley, media correspondent, explains the past and future of the 'red-tops'.
The word tabloid once referred to a size of a newspaper - 30cm by 40cm, to be exact. In this part of the world, when the term came to be applied to newspapers, it was those at the 'bottom' of the market. The tabloids had a monopoly on sensationalism and irresponsible journalism, some said. Others saw them as irreverent, witty and cheeky, with their huge headlines and strong opinions.
Now the term has a yet broader meaning. We have 'tabloid television', for example. Some broadsheet newspapers might even be called tabloid.
Tabloid is now a description of a type of journalism. Today tabloid newspapers often call themselves 'redtops' - a reference to the common red masthead - because the word tabloid is no longer specific enough. Tabloids in Britain are the heirs to a long tradition of popular newspapers (not necessarily tabloid in shape and size). In Ireland the history is more recent.
Popular journalism developed in Britain during the 18th and 19th century. It consisted for many years of illegal, or un-stamped, radical newspapers. Some coffee houses had nearly 100 newspapers on hand; often they would be read aloud to illiterate customers. In the 20th century, the British popular press emerged to serve a growing lower-middle class and an increasingly literate working-class readership. Initially the Daily Mail was the most popular; it was subsequently beaten in the circulation race by the Daily Express, which in turn was overtaken by the Daily Mirror. Finally, the Sun surpassed the Mirror.
Even before any of them, newspapers were always concerned with salacious court cases, the unusual and the weird. They were also sensationalist, rude and scurrilous. It was not the Sun that discovered what sold newspapers.
Lord Northcliffe is often credited with inventing the 'human-interest' story, when he founded the Daily Mail 1896, 'written by office boys for office boys'. This brought the news, written in a new, crisp way, to the breakfast table of the masses. Northcliffe demanded his reporters supply those readers 'a murder a day'. The Daily Express followed in 1900 and the Daily Mirror - the first of them in a tabloid format - in 1903.
bimbo and bingo journalism By and large, newspapers rewarded their owners with little money but a lot of prestige. That really changed in the 1980s, with what has been called 'bimbo and bingo journalism'.
The trend can be traced to 1969, when Rupert Murdoch, a young Australian newspaper publisher, bought both the News of the World and the Sun; both were moved down-market. By the mid 1970s, with its 'page-3 girls', the Sun had overtaken the Mirror, which had been the voice of the British working classes since 1945 and the biggest selling daily ever.
In May 1981 Rupert Murdoch did two things that have since become part of tabloid culture: he introduced a bingo game and cut the Sun's price from 12p to 10p. That year, too, Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles, and the legendary Kelvin McKenzie took over as the paper's editor. In one swoop, the Sun had McKenzie, a price cut, bingo and Lady Di. The super soar-away Sun was Sun-stoppable, Sun-beatable and selling over 4 million copies a day. Murdoch's profitability was assured in the 1980s, thanks to cuts in the number of staff, new technology and a sympathetiic Tory government that helped him get rid of the printing unions and move to new premises outside Fleet Street.
Over a decade later a young leader of the Labour Party, Tony Blair, confident he could beat the Tories, went to see Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch gave Blair his blessing and under a new editor, Stuart Higgins, the Sun backed New Labour and it won the election. Such is the power of the tabloids. the Irish experience
Our tabloid culture for many years simply consisted of buying English tabloids, a practice much condemned in the 1940s and 1950s. In The Imported Press, A National Menace - Some Remedies, published in 1950, Father R S Devane wrote: 'The process of Anglicisation, about which so much was heard at the beginning of this century, has rapidly, though unconsciously, gone on and in such proportion the freedom of the Irish mind has been lost. One of the chief factors in Anglicisation has been the importation of British papers.'
Our own tabloid tradition starts somewhat later; in 1973 the Sunday World was founded. Its attempt to introduce the culture of page 3 was very tame - 25 years ago it was the actress Jeananne Crowley in a tee-shirt. For many years it was our only tabloid and sat rather cheekily within the Irish media. A decade ago, it was joined by the Star, a joint venture between Independent Newspapers and the Daily Star in Britain. It was founded in order to head off the Sun in Ireland and so that Tony O'Reilly's Independent Newspapers would have a newspaper for every market segment, thus limiting the effect of Murdoch.
Over time it has evolved into an Irish tabloid with far less material from its English sister title. However, British tabloids still sell in Ireland. The Sun sells 75,522 daily; the Mirror, 42,365; the Daily Mail, poised in Britain to overtaken the Mirror for the first time, sells 6,127. On Sunday the News of the World sells 153,532; the Sunday Mirror, 46,783; and the Mail on Sunday, 10,483. The Star sells an average of 85,202, while the Sunday World sells 303,964. (By way of comparison, daily sales of The Irish Times are more than 100,000, and growing.)
But whatever the overlap now, the Irish newspaper tradition is very different from that of Britain. Ours was a newspaper culture born of the political culture of the 19th century. Far from seeking 'human-interest' stories, the Irish newspapers were engaged in the political struggles of the day: the campaign for Catholic emancipation, the Land League and Home Rule.
Following independence, the Irish Independent supported the more conservative, pro-Treaty side; The Irish Times continued its support of the Anglo-Irish. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Fianna Fail, under Eamon De Valera, realised it needed a newspaper if it was to become a major force in Irish constitutional politics. However, rather than found a party newspaper, De Valera funded a newspaper, with financial help from Irish Americans; the Irish Press would reflect nationalist Ireland and be editorially sympathetic to Fianna Fail.
All three newspapers saw their role as essentially serious. Politics dominated their front pages, as it still does. The Independent did go in for some human interest stories, but they tended to be mild and reflected its conservative and Catholic stance.