The front page of the Daily Mirror holds 2 separate news stories, one small one spread over the front page and page 5, and the other main article continuing on page 7. The headline reads: “SOCCER ‘RAPE’ GIRL IN SUICIDE BID”. The story in which the headline is referring to is a well documented story about Leicester City football players raping 3 women. The footballers are achieved celebrities; they play in a well known club and earn money that we can only dream of earning. They are normally recognised for their sporting achievements and the tabloids especially, love football stars. However, this story is a derogatory story against the football stars. The paper is giving the implied meaning that it agrees with the women accusing Paul Dickov and Frank Sinclair of rape and assault allegations. The girls are referred to as “depressed” and “traumatised”, and no mention is given as to the feelings of the players only that they are “out on bail” and “strongly deny the claims”. The women at the centre of these allegations have become celebrities themselves. They are recognisable in the headline as “soccer rape girl” and appear as simply their first names in the rest of the story.
The other story on the front page refers to the Iraq war and makes claims that two ITV journalists were “blown to bits” by American forces, and that “NO attempt to look for survivors” was made. The headline reads “Missing ITV duo killed by U.S”. Their names are not recognisable but can still be seen as celebrities as they work in the media. Hundreds of soldiers and civilians were killed as these two journalists were, but a story has been put on the front page about them because they work in the media and are seen to have “power” as celebrities, though their names are not recognisable as celebrities. Also on the front page, as the largest picture on the front page out-shadowing the photo for the main story, Charlotte Church appears with the line “How dumping her man helped Charlotte lose pounds”. Story continues on page 3, and this photo and simple line define how celebrities are represented in the tabloids. Charlotte Church who recently turned 18 is now seen as an adult and the tabloids feel freer in how they represent her. They could be criticised for being iniquitous is depicting her the same way when she was 16 or 17. The photo is of her in a low cut top her arms back, looking straight at the camera. The emphasis is on her losing weight, and as she is a celebrity, this is seen as being worth a mention on the front page. Turning to page 3, we see a large picture of her posing on a bench with her “new look”. We see her achievement as something special, simply because she is a celebrity. The tabloids look to celebrities to sell papers therefore by having a picture of Charlotte Church on the front page doing pretty much anything, will make them achieve sales.
Another news story in the Daily Mirror focuses on Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and claims that friends have told them Gordon Brown is so certain he will become Prime Minister within the next two years that he has already started planning his cabinet. This friend has also started which members would be in which cabinet positions, Jack Straw as Deputy PM, and Robin Cook as Foreign Secretary. The story treats Gordon Brown and Tony Blair in the same way is does the other celebrities it has covered. The headline reads: GORDON: I WILL BE PM BY 2006. The headline implies Brown has said that sentence, but as it does not appear in quote marks we can be sure that Gordon Brown has not actually said this. It is misleading over the relationship between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, and much of the story is based on evidence from a close source or friend to the Chancellor. Is also relies of recognition of the Gordon Brown and Tony Blair simply by the first names. Calling the Chancellor of the Exchequer simply “Gordon” also makes him seem more approachable to the readers of The Daily Mirror. It has also rendered the system for choosing cabinet ministers as an almost “pop-idol” winning/losing system, showing that importance is not based on the facts but rather on the small details that the readers want. John Prescott and Peter Hain have two photos next to which “OUT” is written in capitols and bold type face. If this story is true and not “complete rubbish” as quoted by a Premier’s official spokesman, Gordon Brown would not have simply decided to get rid off John Prescott or Peter Hain and decided “OUT”. This is an example of how the culture of celebrities from shows such as Pop Idol which relies on “voting out” and show a “getting rid off those you dislike” culture can influence stories about politics and politicians.
The Entertainment pages on The Daily Mirror are written by the 3am girls, Jessica Callan, Eva Simpson and Caroline Hedley. The girls write the latest gossip on celebrities spotted drinking, partying, pretty much anything that will add to sales of papers. The celebrities featured in this issue include Beyonce, Janet Jackson, Penny Lancaster and Rachel Hunter, Big Brovaz, Madonna and Elizabeth Jagger. These celebrities are ascribed celebrities, acclaimed due to their amazing talents. However, little is mentioned about these talents and focus is on their personal lives. This can be seen as an intrusion of their privacy however, is this really an issue? Celebrities revel in their status when they are loved by the media and idolised by the public and many celebrities find that “it’s great when you are winning, and an unpleasant brand of slow torture when you’re losing” – The Guardian. Therefore to produce column-inches in which they hope to steal back the limelight, many celebrities sell their stories to the press and invade their own privacy to win back their celebrity status. However, even celebrities that are still in the limelight know that their status can earn them more money. Celebrity weddings can make the celebrities thousands, even millions of pounds by selling their story and pictures as an exclusive to one magazine, such as Hello. An example of this being the wedding of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, in which the sold pictures and their story for £1m. Not only that, but they can now also celebrate a “ludicrous “privacy” win against a magazine that dares to try spoil the £1m deal with another one. Moral: how dare you invade my privacy when I am making so much cash invading it myself?” - The Guardian. As The Smiths say “fame, fame, fatal fame, it can play hideous tricks on the brain”. The issue of privacy is a complex one with celebrities arguing they have a right to privacy. And in most cases, I would agree that the tabloid press can over step the line. Long lens photography and the almost insane attempts to sustain a story by prying into private lives means that privacy rights are completed ignored.
The Sun’s entertainment pages have pretty much the same layout. The title of the pages “bizarre” is in the same bold print as the Daily Mirror and is also in the same colour font. This double page spread of photos and stories about celebrities is in the same ‘montage’ layout, and features celebrities such as Justin Hawkins, Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova, Duncan James, Justin Timberlake, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Both of the Entertainment sections of the Sun and The Daily Star use stand first to highlight the celebrities’ names, and use headshots of celebrities to effectively make people read the story. All the photos are cropped and are therefore shown out of context. This can be damaging to the celebrity as the picture can be twisted to mean something else by the tabloid. The celebrities in these entertainment pages are represented as fun-loving and they all wear expensive fashionable clothes which make them admirable and ‘stars’ to look up too. The celebrities in these entertainment pages have all the instantly recognisable faces and the larger the celebrity, the larger the article and the photo. However, what makes some celebrities more famous than others? The public would view Justin Timberlake a bigger star than Lucy Davis (Dawn in the Office), but is this because he has more talent? Probably not. The tabloids place more influence on Justin Timberlake because the public see Justin Timberlake as a bigger star simply because the media and the tabloids focus more on him. If all the tabloids had an article of Lucy Davis, articles, photos etc, then the public would view her as a bigger star. It is how the newspapers represent the celebrities that decide who the public want to see, and then therefore the tabloids continue to represent in their papers.
The news pages in The Sun represent celebrities in pretty much the same way that The Daily Mirror does. However, while reading The Sun I’m surprised to find that the amount of news stories is more than The Daily Star with an unexpected emphasis on current affairs and politics. The front cover holds a story about Spain’s election in which a socialist party won following the bombings in Madrid. The main story on the front cover is a story about the Leicester City rape allegations – like The Daily Star – with the headline: SINCLAIR SEX BLOW. The story is about Frank Sinclair romping with rape case girl. There is a small headshot of Frank Sinclair wearing his Leicester City uniform. He is being represented as readers will recognise him. By putting a picture of him in his uniform on the front cover, the headline with his name in, it is instantly identifiable as a connection to the allegations and to the well documented.
Shane Richie in this issue of The Sun has a double page spread dedicated to him. He turned 40 and the headline reads: Shane’s 12-hour Enders bender. He is being represented here as his screen persona. The story is probably totally embellished, as it claims that Richie blew £250’000 on this one night and with no evidence as to where this information comes from. There is one whole page of pictures, including many of his Eastenders co-stars. The photographs are very important to back up and give evidence of this story. If The Sun had printed this story without the photos, then the reader would be suspicious of some of the claims such as “Charlie Brooks got into the swing of things on a bucking bronco ride”. The picture of this claim backs it up giving credibility to the story.
Another celebrity being represented as the public expect them to be shown is Katie Price a.k.a Jordan. The picture is not even of her face, but of her bending over so we can see her “mighty cleavage” (their words, not mine), and er, her dark roots. She is being represented not as an author of a book – which the article is writing about – but as the public expects to see Jordan. And the papers are living up to this expectation. A second picture in the 47-word article shows Jordan grabbing the breast of a life size cut out of herself and we get the impression that the representation of The Sun have given her is what she wants to project. She receives celebrity status by living up to tabloids expectations of her, as she knows she will appear in the tabloid papers the next day. So is she just living up to representation she knows the tabloids will give her anyway, or are the tabloids representing her the way in which she just projects herself?
The Sports pages of both The Sun and The Daily Star represent the sporting celebrities in pretty much the same way. The Sun has 10 pages dedicated to sport and The Daily Star has 9 pages.
Starting with The Sun, the headline on the back page reads DONKEYS OF THE DERBY referring to Manchester United sorry defeat by Manchester City. Alex Ferguson is recognisable by the name “Fergie” and uses pictures to back up the story. The story is continued on page 50 and the back page shows photographs of Scholes with the caption “dismayed” and on the other side Alex Ferguson with the caption “angry”. It is representing the two football stars in the one picture to ‘sum up’ the story to the readers, before they’ve read the whole article. The reader gets a ‘snapshot’ of the article from the two photographs and the two words accompanying them.
And of course the biggest sport celebrity David Beckham has a least one mention in The Sun. The article about Beckham is not even about his sporting achievements but his private life and reads like it should be in the entertainment pages rather than the sport pages. It tells of troubles with his wife after moving abroad and whether he is having trouble in his new team. The article has the feeling that The Sun almost wants him to be unhappy in Spain and to miss England.
The Sun has also picked up on a new sporting hero, Steve Harmison the England Cricketer is being nicknames “Grievous Bodily Harmison”. This is an example of an achieved sporting player becoming a celebrity. As the tabloids are representing him as a sporting hero – just as they did Wayne Rooney or Johnny Wilkinson – they turn an unknown into a tabloid celebrity. The more the tabloids focus on these sporting ‘heroes’, the more the public want. “Once the public has a taste, their appetite grows” – BBC1 Tabloid Tales.
From the two newspapers I have studied, I can see that celebrities feature widely in tabloid newspapers every day. Celebrities are used to sell copies and therefore often appear on the front cover to attract that public, which have a thirst for celebrities and gossip. B-list Celebrities often use tabloids to promote themselves – Jordan, Shane Richie for example – and tabloids often embellish these stories, receiving information from a “close source” rather than named people that can be held accountable. Therefore, I conclude that celebrities are represented how they choose to be. While newspapers exaggerate facts, the basic stories are there because celebrities want to remain celebrities. The growing obsession with celebrity shows no sign of slowing, as more and more celebrities are being produced by shows such as Big Brother etc, the more and more the public want to see them.
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