“Intrusions and enquiries into an individuals private life without his or her consent including the use of long lens photography to take pictures of people on private property without their consent are not generally acceptable and publication can only be justified when in the public interest”
The tabloids failed to cease in their tactics when covering Diana, justifying their intrusions on the grounds of public interest, because of her special status as mother to the future king.
Since Diana’s death the Press Complaints Commission has tightened its Code of Practice, banning papers from buying and publishing photographs taken by “persistent pursuit”. They also set guidelines on the reporting of princes William and Harry while at school, which the tabloids have largely respected.
However, the tabloids have not shown the same level of respect when covering the rich and famous. The main staple of tabloid reporting has been the coverage of celebrities’ marriages, divorces, sex lives and affairs, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and their rise and subsequent fall of fame.
Hardly a day passes when at least one female celebrity cannot fail to see her breasts on the pages of a tabloid paper. Pictures taken with long lenses, of celebs on holiday, sunbathing topless has been commonplace in the British tabloids. Some people choose to criticise the celebrities themselves for giving the paparazzi such a photo opportunity. However, many woman on holiday choose to sunbathe topless without hassle, the same respect should be accredited to celebrities.
Tabloid intrusion doesn’t just stop on the beaches of the Med, it can try and infiltrate private and what should be special events.
When Victoria Adams (posh spice) married David Beckham, the exclusive rights were sold to “Hello” magazine for £1 million. All other reporters and photographers were banned from the venue. Yet there are stories that one enterprising journalist, led in a ditch for six days to try and capture just one picture that he could then sell on to the tabloid papers. He was found just 20 minutes before the wedding. Despite all of the security surrounding the wedding, pictures were found in “The Sun” newspaper the following day.
In an interview with Victoria Beckham, for her channel 4 show “Victoria’s secrets”, Robert Maxwell, editor of “The Mirror” said:
“It used to be that if in doubt, put the royals on the front page, today however, it’s the Beckhams"
The Beckhams wedding cannot really be justified as a story of public interest. Rather, it is a story that entertains the public. If a newspapers primary function is of business and earning money, it’s second, as regards to the tabloid press, is to entertain its readers. This enables the tabloids to distort the term “ a story of public interest” into “ a story that is of public entertainment”. A tabloid can then justify it’s reporting by saying that it’s contents is what the British public want to read. This is backed up by figures supplied by the Audit Bureau of Circulation. (Period January to June 2000)
“The sun” has a circulation of 3,586,803 compared with “the telegraph” which has 722,642. This shows that the leading tabloid has almost a 5 times greater circulation figure than that of the leading broadsheet.
“I see it (tabloids) as a branch of showbiz. It recognised for the first time the need to entertain the reading public. The front pages even look entertaining, rather like the front of a theatre, all stars and bright lights beckoning you inside. There’s so much glitz and razzmatazz”
(David banks, former employee of “the sun”)
In pandering for the represented majority a tabloid can and often will exploit it’s readers prejudices; calling the French “frogs”, referring to the Germans as the “Hun” and talking about asylum seekers as “costing the BRITISH tax payer”. The greater percentage of the papers readers will support the dominant reading in any given report.
In 1999, the sun newspaper seemed to conflict with it’s own prejudices. They ran a series of articles and interviews with “ Stephen Gately”, former “Boyzone” member, about him coming out as being gay. Even putting the story on the front page, using such headlines as; “Boyzone star: “I’m gay and in love””. Stephen himself says that he chose to give the story to the sun because he knew it would reach the largest audience and the majority of his fan base, compared with the other titles. The sun also realised that the sales figures for these issues would increase compared with a normal news day.
70 percent of the sun, daily mirror and daily star readers fall into the social classes C2 (skilled manual) D (unskilled manual) E (casual labourers and the unemployed). These social classes are not, stereotypically, regarded by society as being highly educated or highly literate. With these groups making up 2/3 of tabloid readership, they are required to be succinct, and pithy, using everyday colloquialisms and language in it’s reporting. Implying that it is conversing with the individual reader directly.
With tabloids claiming the majority of U.K. newspaper readers, they can have significant affect on people’s views, outlook and political allegiances. Newspapers in Britain are not obliged to be impartial in accounting for the political process.
“Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, the requisite thing is that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite”
(Thomas Carlyle)
It seems that in Britain the “tongue, which others will listen to” is that of the tabloid press.
Throughout the 80’s the sun newspaper support Margaret Thatcher and her conservative party. However in the 1997 election it chose to switch allegiances to Tony Blair and the Labour Party, who won the election that year. A similar thing had occurred in Australia, when a Rupert Murdoch owned paper switched its support from one political party to another with that party subsequently winning the election. Proving that the tabloid press has the power to influence political debate.
Finally, one of the biggest contentions people have with the tabloid press is the objectification of women. This being best illustrated by the “page 3 model”. Carried by the sun and the daily star. The sun featured its first nude page 3 models in 1970 which shocked some people, while others embraced the candid, unashamed stance of the paper. The tabloid traditionally tries to target the working class man, with its mix of sex, sensationalism and sport. The page 3 models are a deliberate ploy to attract this group of society. However in doing this some women’s groups say that in issuing just one of the pictures the tabloids have set back women’s rights and the way women are viewed in society at least one hundred years. However, this has not translated into the readership figures. The average number of men and women reading tabloid papers in 1994 according to figures from the coverage and profile demographic analysis were men 58% and women 42%.
“We acknowledge what many journalists were anxious to forget – that the basic interests of the human race are not in politics, philosophy or economics, but in things like food and money, sex and crime, football and television. But we did not deal with these things to the exclusion of all others…we tried ceaselessly to make a newspaper, which mattered. A newspaper that got it first, and got it right. A newspaper for people not for Fleet Street.
(Larry lamb, former editor of the sun)
I believe that tabloid papers perform a much needed service in eneter4taining, and bringing news in away that makes it easily understood to people who might otherwise not encounter the news. Their tactics in reporting their stories can sometimes be questionable and some might say immoral. But we need to ask ourselves whether or not the ends justify the means. It’s down to the individual readers to decide that for themselves.