Tabloid Nation

For this weeks HCJ seminar, we were looking at Chris Horrie's book - 'Tabloid Nation'. It looks at the 'Rise and Fall of the Daily Mirror'. This was a quite a different book to what we've become accustomed too in HCJ. The focus has been very much on philosophy. This book certainly wasn't like The Communist Manifesto or J'Accuse. I certainly found this book a lot easier to take in, and have actually found it very interesting and will finish reading the rest of it over the next few days.

Thier are a number of newspaper techniques mentioned at the beggining of this book that are still used today by many of the top newspapers to try and gain bigger sales, and a higher circulation of thier paper. Things like sexual content, sensationalised stories, big bold headlines and exclusive pictures are all still used by newspapers like The Sun, The Daily Mirror and The Daily Star as well as magazines such as OK! and Hello.

Another is the 'free gifts' idea that still continues today with the chance to win cheap holidays, cars and more. Back in the early 1900's the offers included homeware, encyclopedias, a complete collection of Charles Dickens. Also £200-worth of life insurance a offered in Northcliffes first publication 'Answers' ('Answers to Correspondents On Every Subject Under the Sun').

The Daily Mirror saw its readership both
decline and increase over the years
Source - Flickr: Valerie Everett

One thing I noticed is that at one point 'the mirror' seemed to go in a bit of a circle with who they were targeting for readership. It began as a female targeted audience before a change of plans were made by Northcliffe.

[More will be added to this blog soon]

Posted in: chris horrie, HCJ, history and context of journalism, northcliffe, tabloid nation, the daily mirror