Tag Archives: tabloids

‘Demented intensity’ of tabloid celebrity coverage shows commercial importance

You either love or hate it, but according to Peter Kirwin the celebrity gossip filled pages of British tabloids could be its saviour in the future.

In a Wired.com post, Kirwin talks about why digital replications are not the long-term solution and that British tabloids need to get back to the roots of their popularity.

There’s plenty of life left in print. But publishers need to start work on long-term alternatives to the failed approach of simply dumping print content into digital formats. Stripping down the disintegrating bundle of delights stitched together by Hugh Cudlipp in the 1930s and focusing exclusively on celebrity coverage could yet emerge as one route to salvation (…) Happily, the demented intensity of celebrity coverage also reflects the presence of a real commercial imperative: the entertainment industry’s need to shift units in an era of audience fragmentation.

Read his full post here…

Paperhouse: Jon Snow is pro-privacy law – ‘tabloids are going out of business anyway’

Journalism.co.uk had this on its to-do list for this morning, but Sarah Ditum got there first and picked up Jon Snow’s comments from his reverse-role interview with Ann Widdecombe in the Guardian magazine on Saturday.

The Channel 4 News journalist – and Widdecombe reckons this is her scoop – would welcome a privacy act and says it wouldn’t affect the tabloids too much – ‘they’re going out of business anyway’.

AW Would you welcome a privacy act, Jon Snow?

JS I would welcome a privacy act, yes.

AW We have the scoop! Jon Snow says, ‘Bring in a privacy act.’

JS I believe that the tabloid media, in particular, have so intruded into the private lives of public people that they have brought it upon themselves that there should indeed be a privacy act.

AW I think that is absolutely right. I think…

JS Damn me, Ann Widdecombe, I didn’t think we’d have to sit here and agree.

AW And I consider that quite a coup, to have got Jon Snow to agree with me that we need to curtail the rights of the media. Thank you, Jon Snow…

JS I am totally opposed to, and would go to the gallows to prevent, censorship. But needless intrusion into the private lives of anybody…

AW Let me ask you this. Let’s imagine a politician – I don’t care whether it’s male or female, Jon, but let’s imagine a politician. You’ve got a politician who has never made any pronouncements about morality, who has a mistress. Is that the public’s business?

JS Not at all.

AW You’ve just put a lot of the tabloids out of business.

JS Well, they’re going out of business anyway, so that won’t mean much…

Paperhouse post at this link…