British tabloids are beloved 'rubbish' to many
By K. Basrie
LONDON (JP): Whether you like it or not, British tabloids have their own place among the world media and society.
There are negative and positive aspects about the narrow-paged newspapers.
Some, including Britons, say tabloids are rubbish.
"I even call them prostitution," said Brian Dancer of the city Public Health Service, referring to the daily exposure of bare women on the pages.
One needs only 500 words of vocabulary to read the stories, or even to become a tabloid journalist, he said.
Val Williams, president of Cardiff-based Thomson Foundation, an institution that regularly holds courses for foreign journalists, said 90 percent of the people who read tabloids left school at the age of 16.
"Thus they have different vocabulary, different tastes," Williams said.
But their astounding "human interest" stories (euphemism for sexual titillation and scandalous reports) put the tabloids in a favorable position among their hefty rivals: broadsheet newspapers and television stations.
History records the colorful, inspiring, breath-taking and touching human stories of British tabloids.
For instance, a week after the tragic sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912, The Daily Mirror surprisingly ran a full-page picture on its front page of the wife of the great steamer's commander and their four-year-old daughter.
The caption under the photograph was a touching message to all her fellow bereaved.
The caption read: Mrs. Eleanor Smith, wife of the Titanic's commander, whose husband went down with his vessel shouting "Be British".
The tabloids' admirable relationship with readers also proves their special status in the newspaper society.
One extreme example is a series of pictures of the May 1937 Zeppelin blast in Hedinburg taken by enthusiast Dick Merrill, who flew his own airplane across the Atlantic just to get his work printed in the Daily Express.
The endless coverage of Princess Diana, from her wedding, married life, scandals and death to her letters and memorial fund and people's inability to resist yet another article on a subject that they were bored with is one example of people's love-hate relationship with tabloids.
Business and political stories, however crucial they may be, are traditionally categorized "plain" articles by tabloid editors and therefore it is deemed unnecessary to run them on the front page.
The recent Asian European Meeting (ASEM) summit of 22 heads of governments in London, for instance, did not get a mention in British tabloids.
Amazingly, editors do sometimes relent when hard news about world renowned dictators come to their desks.
Pol Pot's "death" on April 16 is just an example of how many tabloid editors viewed such political news. Many gave special space as well as smarting words of condolences for the butcher in the "killing fields".
The recent resignation of Soeharto also made headlines in many tabloids.
When it comes to ethics and people's feelings, tabloids often ignore the such considerations and compete with each other in the race to boost paid circulation.
National Press Assembly secretary-general Kenneth Morgan admitted it caused turbulence, saying there were many inaccuracies in the reports of UK media.
Talking to a visiting Indonesian press group recently, Morgan described the problem and the government's relaxed stance as an impact of "a relatively free press".
No matter how people see them, the tabloids do share a large part of the pie in the country.
A March 1998 independent survey conducted by ABC (see table) reveals that the daily circulation of five major national tabloids in the UK is almost five times higher than rival broadsheets.
The circulation of The Sun, famous for its Page 3 topless women, reached 3.77 million copies, compared to the 1.08 million copies of the popular broadsheet Daily Telegraph.
In comparison, Kompas, Indonesia's biggest-selling newspaper, has a circulation of about 400,000 copies per day.
Unlike the slim weekly tabloids in Indonesia, British tabloids are bulky -- an average of 50 pages and supplements on weekends -- and offer a variety of stories, gifts, scratch cards, puzzles and cartoons.
Besides stories of the famous and local human-interest articles, other best selling points of the prominent British tabloids include seductive photos of topless girls, sports, classified ads and a TV/radio section.
"I read the football section and sometimes the front-page story. My wife has her own favorite pages. Later, the paper ends up in my son's room with some pages of the girls missing," said waiter Albert Regan of Cardiff.
To meet the needs of different readers, most tabloids have horoscope, recipe, letters and stock market sections.
Some tabloids have changed their layout and design. The Mirror and Daily Star have been redesigned several times.
Redesigning, however, does nothing to boost circulation of the tabloids, which cost between 25p (45 U.S. cent) and 35p each.
One of the reasons their circulation has decreased slightly over recent years is the powerful draw of television.
For instance, the Sun, controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News International, dropped from four million copies recently to some 3.7 million.
The Newspaper Society reveals that Britain currently has 1,351 regional and local dailies, weeklies and free newspapers.
The national press is virtually controlled by News International, Mirror Group Newspapers, United Newspapers, Associated Newspapers and the Daily Telegraph.
Tabloid stories often trigger debate at the House of Commons, such as a recent report on the release of a pedophile from prison. The story sparked public anger, which resulted in some people demanding that the man be kept away from their neighborhoods and, if necessary, be locked up again.
According to Dancer, it was the way the tabloids reported the story that fanned people's outrage, a method that does not educate people.
"I find they are incredibly offensive. I think it's already a serious problem in this country. It's the failure of the education system here.
"Pity, nobody has tried to stop this," Dancer said.
However, as tabloids remain extremely popular in a country as democratic as Britain, there is no way to make them publish articles that would bring positive impacts, said Morgan of the National Press Assembly.
"No one can really restrict the free press here. There's nobody and no specific press law that exclusively deal with the press," he said.
Table A: Daily circulation of tabloids (in thousands)
Title 1955 1988 1995 March 1998
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The Express 4,036 1,637 1,292 1,173
Daily Mail 2,068 1,759 1,794 2,327
The Mirror 4,725 3,157 2,476 2,338
Sun - 4,219 4,134 3,768
Daily Star - 967 741 671
Table B: Daily circulation of national broadsheet (in thousands)
Title 1955 1988 1995 March 1998
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Daily Telegraph 1,055 1,128 1,061 1,078
Guardian 156 438 400 406
Independent - 387 290 216
Financial Times 80 279 305 359
Times 222 436 631 784
Source: ABC