Learning Targets: I can determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text.
I can draw evidence from an informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Essential question: Why do people enjoy tabloid journalism?
To begin, please read the following articles, one from Time Magazine and
A Brief History Of: Tabloids!! By Kate Pickert, the second from a Fairfax, New Zealand editor. There are a few questions pertaining to these at the end. Please respond and send along, as usual.
Of note:
The etymology of “Tabloid” in 1884 is from a trademark of the Burroughs Welcome and Company, a nineteenth century pharmaceutical company in England that produced medicine originally in powder form. The tabloid was a pill made by compressing the powder into small bullet-like pills called tabloids, tablets and later tabs. The oid suffix is from oeides meaning like. By 1898, tabloid was being used figuratively to mean a compressed form or small dose of anything. The small newspaper with condensed articles was nicknamed the tabloid.
In the context of journalism, “tabloid” referred to the size of the newspaper and its abbreviated content. It has since evolved to mean a sensationalized newspaper with sometimes barely truthful content and even to include television which highlights celebrity news and scandals.
The tabloid industry began in earnest in England and tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk news. Often, tabloid newspaper allegations about the sexual practices, drug use, or private conduct of celebrities is borderline defamatory; in many cases, celebrities have successfully sued for libel, demonstrating that tabloid stories have defamed them. It is this sense of the word that led to some entertainment news programs to be called tabloid television. Tabloid newspapers are sometimes pejoratively called the gutter press.
Tabloid journalism was exported to America where the papers are now featured in supermarkets at checkout aisles. American tabs are particularly notorious for their deliberate and over-the-top sensationalizing of stories.
The tabloids readily admit to practicing what is called “checkbook journalism” and tout its legitimacy and justify their use of it because ‘everybody practices checkbook journalism.’ This practice refers to paying for stories. There is willingness by tabloids to pay handsomely for information upon which to build their stories. They have publicly admitted that it doesn’t matter if it is truth; it only matters that somebody is willing to say it for a fee they are willing to pay.
If someone is willing to say what the tabloid reporter is looking for—some salacious material about a celebrity or public figure to craft a story, the tab’s corporate headquarters willingly pay large sums of money to “sources.” It doesn’t matter if it’s true. If it’s not true, they can always print a retraction; but meanwhile the headlines scream scandal and millions of papers sold make millions of dollars.
The above information was excerpted from: http://voiceseducation.org/
When John Edwards admitted what the national Enquirer had been saying for months--that he had had an affair with a campaign videographer--it was only the latest in a string of high-profile scandals broken by the supermarket press. But politicians' foibles weren't always the target of choice for the tabloids. In the 1950s, their pages were splashed with bloody car accidents and gruesome mutilations. Enquirer owner Generoso Pope dialed down the gore in an effort to appeal to housewives in the checkout aisle, replacing it with alien abductions and medical oddities. Celebrity gossip took over by the late 1960s, as the Enquirer and rival Globe feasted on Chappaquiddick, Jackie Kennedy's remarriage and the death of Elvis. (The Enquirer paid a Presley relative to snap a picture of the King in his coffin.) Rupert Murdoch's Star joined in soon after. Weekly World News, billing itself "The World's Only Reliable Newspaper," carried on the mantle of the weird, covering miraculous cancer cures and zombie sightings. "When we inform people, it's usually by accident," admitted its editor. Tabloid circulation peaked in the 1980s, but the O.J. Simpson trial prompted a rapid--and ironic--reversal of fortune. Broadcast coverage of the spectacle eclipsed anything that could be done in print, setting a template for sensational TV journalism that would drive the tabs' circulation down 30% by the mid-'90s. Celebrity print media has bounced back in recent years, thanks to Britney and Paris, although mostly in the glossy magazine format that Star switched to in 2004. And as it is with most papers, the Internet is impinging on tabloids' turf. The new medium has already claimed Weekly World News, which folded in 2007--but readers looking for the latest on the ALIEN BABY LOVE CHILD can still find it online.
WHAT MAKES A TABLOID? By Fairfax senior subeditor Jim Mahoney (recent article from New Zealand)
What is tabloid journalism and what makes it different?
What makes a tabloid is the content, small format, big headings, and big pictures designed to carry a big message.
Unfortunately, the vehicle often dwarfs its passenger. This is known in the trade as a beat-up, when a tabloid editor or news editor takes his best story of the day and adds a bit more sensation than the facts would suggest the story truly deserves.
It’s this emphasis on sensation that truly defines a tabloid. Words like ‘shock’ and ‘horror’ have become synonymous with the medium.
There is nothing wrong with sensationalism, by the way — just as long as the facts justify it. If a story is sensational, why not present it in the most sensational manner possible?
The news business is not meant to bore people to death. When a tabloid really does its job, it presents a sensational story with equally sensational headlines, graphics and writing.
At its best, tabloid style is pithy, direct and spare — aimed straight at what used to be the working man. Unfortunately, these days such a person is often unemployed.
I’m speaking of New Zealand, of course, where we’ve always had a somewhat pious, haughty attitude to tabloids, and they have become the fodder of the working class. In England, tabloids are meat and drink for all classes and have mass audiences.
George Orwell, a writer I’m sure you’re familiar with, came up with six elementary rules in his essay ‘Politics and the English Language’. Much to my chagrin, I’ll have to ignore the first one, since we (the press) are the guilty parties.
Those rules are:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
These are fundamental rules for any writing style, but tabloids add a few more.
The trick with titles is to remove the definite article and change the word order. ‘The President of the United States, Barack Obama’ becomes ‘US president Barack Obama’. It’s shorter and easier to read and has more pace.
That also leads me to contractions. I’ve, he’s, couldn’t, wouldn’t etc are all common in speech. The aim of a tabloid newspaper is to approximate ordinary speech as closely as possible.
In general, following Orwell’s strictures, short English words are best and the active voice is always preferable. If you must use a long sentence, follow it up with a short and hopefully emphatic one.
Here are some memorable tabloid headings.
HEADLESS BODY
IN TOPLESS BAR
New York Post
GOTCHA!
The Sun
Racist, chauvinistic, jingoistic — call it what you like, it’s effective. And so is...
LARD OF THE RING
Used for Sonny Bill Williams’s last opponent — also used years ago by me for
overweight wrestler King Curtis.
And some memorable headlines together with a ‘strapline’ — a two-part heading approach,
that is common in tabloids:
Please copy the following into a word document and send along no later than midnight.
1. What was the fodder for tabloids in the 1950s?
2. What took over in the 1960s and who was one of the popular figures?
3.Give an example of why the World Weekly news wore the "mantle of the weird?"
4.How did the OJ Simpson case promote "an ironic reversal of fortune?"
(take a one minute peek: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLIydNCmACQ
5.Define a "beat-up."
6. When is sensationalism appropriate?
7. How do you know when a tabloid "really does its job?"
8.How should titles and contractions be handled in a tabloid?
9.What voice should be used in a article?
10. What is a strapline?
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