The Newsmongers, A History of Tabloid Journalism
Terry Kirby, Reaktion, £20

TERRY KIRBY was one of the founding reporters for The Independent and worked his way through various senior positions in the paper. He now teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on journalism at Goldsmiths.

As such, The Newsmongers is a broadsheet journalist’s account of tabloid journalism. It focuses on the narrative of the story, keeps the who-what-when-why-how front and centre, has many central villains, and few heroes. 

One thing that is abundantly clear by the time you reach the end of the book is that British tabloid journalism bears no relation to the news and has two primary aims: making money and wielding political power. Making money comes through circulation and attracting advertisers. Circulation comes from selling sex, scandal and tittle-tattle rather than news. 

Political power is demonstrated through the manipulation of the public. Kirby’s account includes many choice examples of how issues are framed to push reactionary agendas, whether it’s Meghan Markle or campaigns against migrants or unions. 

Often there is excessive focus on celebrity and personalities, none of which has to be true: witness Madeleine McCann’s parents or Freddy Starr’s hamster. Paul Dacre’s Daily Mail is described as a “bubbling quagmire of prejudice posting as news, of opinion dressed as fact, and contempt posing as contempt.”

You are left in no doubt that the tabloid press is both vile and powerful. When caught out phone hacking, the News of The World was summarily liquidated but the Leveson inquiry never saw its second half, press regulation didn’t improve and many escaped serious consequences for their crimes. Legal settlements are simply business costs. 

Politicians are at best wary if not outright collusive with the media empires. We note with interest that Tony Blair became godparent to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter and that Rebekah Wade and David Cameron enjoyed numerous country suppers together. 

However this is also a history and Kirby devotes his first chapter to the early 20th century “penny press,” which shows remarkable similarity to modern red-tops, with stories focusing on gossip, prostitutes, highwaymen and thieves. 

Was there a golden age of journalism at all? It wasn’t certainly always as bad. Joseph Pulitzer certainly had ethical intentions of class improvement, and it now seems surprising to learn that John Pilger wrote for the Daily Mirror. 

However, it is also clear that with a few notable exceptions, the 20th century tabloid press has no interest in being the first draft of history, and is dominated by moguls, whether its the mercurial Robert Maxwell, or Rupert Murdoch, both promoting agendas which suit themselves. 

Many of the titles discussed are aimed at specific class-based demographies such as the council house-buying working class. The pure propagandistic power evidenced in Kirby’s account engulfs these classes, corrupts political debate and twists it to its own ends. 

When not framing issues, lies can be inserted instead, and sometimes it becomes outright commands to the public, which it can expect the masses to obey: turn out the lights when Kinnock wins. 

Kirby’s account is raw and pacy. However it does not delve deeper into the economics which underpin the tabloid’s political and financial backing, and it would have been an improvement to see how the media empires relate to the broader capitalist environment. 

But it provides plenty of narrative which show the remarkable influence these papers have, and the often obnoxious personalities behind them. While Kirby doesn’t make the claim, it is clear that the tabloid press is an immensely powerful weapon in class control: titillation, distraction, lies, division and scapegoating are its primary tactics. 

Britain is a mess. Kirby quotes fellow journalist Brian Cathcart, who has no doubt who is primarily to blame: “It is the corporate national press, whose messages pervade and poison all other media, that has normalised the abnormal in the UK, that has made what is wrong appear as right, that has stoked contempt and hatred for the weak and poor, that has facilitated and concealed corruption, that has engineered support for the brutal and the stupid and that was has corroded what was honest and decent.”

It’s also immensely powerful and it will take a serious battle to hold it to account. 

Enemies of the people. Indeed.