Tabloid journalism tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news. Such journalism is commonly associated with tabloid sized newspapers like "The National Enquirer", "Globe" or "The Daily Mail" and the former "News of the World." The terms "tabloids", "supermarket tabloids", "gutter press", and "rag", refer to the journalistic approach of such newspapers rather than their size.
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.
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An early pioneer of tabloid journalism was Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (1865–1922), who amassed a large publishing empire of halfpenny papers by rescuing failing stolid papers and transforming them to reflect the popular taste, which yielded him enormous profits. Harmsworth used his tabloids to influence public opinion, for example, by bringing down the wartime government of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith in the Shell Crisis of 1915.
In the U.S. "supermarket tabloids" are large, national versions of these tabloids, usually published weekly. They are named for their prominent placement along the checkout lines of supermarkets. Supermarket tabloids are particularly notorious for the over-the-top sensationalizing of stories, the facts of which can often be called into question. These tabloids—such as The Globe and The National Enquirer—often use aggressive and usually mean-spirited tactics to sell their issues. Unlike regular tabloid-format newspapers, supermarket tabloids are distributed through the magazine distribution channel, similarly to other weekly magazines and mass-market paperback books. Leading examples include The National Enquirer, Star, Weekly World News (now defunct), and Sun.
Most major supermarket tabloids in the U.S. are published by American Media, Inc., including The National Enquirer, Star, The Globe, National Examiner, ¡Mira!, Sun, Weekly World News and Radar.
Supermarket tabloids are weekly magazines printed on newsprint in tabloid format, specializing in celebrity news, gossip, astrology, and bizarre stories about ordinary people. Supermarket tabloids are notorious for the over-the-top sensationalizing of stories, the facts of which can be called into question. Tabloids—such as The Globe and The National Enquirer—often use aggressive and usually mean-spirited tactics to sell their issues. Unlike regular tabloid-format newspapers, supermarket tabloids are distributed through the magazine distribution channel, similarly to other weekly magazines and mass-market paperback books. They are often found for sale alongside the checkout lines or cash registers of supermarkets, hence the name. Leading examples include The National Enquirer, Star, and Sun. Others include The National Examiner and the Weekly World News which is now a Sun insert and web site. Columbia has a supermarket tabloid—El Espacio (Tabloid)
The oldest tabloid known to date is the American "Daily News" in 1919. If it did not have any news, it would simply make it up and use a photograph staged by the newspaper staff, then use an editing technique called the composograph.
Collectively called the "tabloid press", tabloid newspapers in Britain tend to be simply and sensationally written, and to give more prominence than broadsheets to celebrities, sports, crime stories and even hoaxes; they also less subtly, take a political position (either left-wing or right-wing) on news stories, ridiculing politicians, demanding resignations and predicting election results. The term "red tops"[1] refers to tabloids with red nameplates, such as The Sun, the Daily Star, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Sport,[2] and distinguishes them from the Daily Express and Daily Mail. Red top newspapers are usually simpler in writing style, dominated by pictures, and directed at the more sensational end of the market.
A recent British survey alleged "journalists on newspapers such as The Sun, Mirror or Daily Star" to be considerably less trustworthy than both politicians and estate agents, with fewer than 10% of people trusting them to reliably report the truth.