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We only ever bother with The Sunday Times here, it's *huge* and just about lasts all week 
Posted: 19:51 Apr 16 2003
Tabloid vs Broadsheet
As Whistler said "Any discussion about broadsheet and tabloid journalism in a different thread, please", I thought I'd move away from the Creme Egg thread and start another one. Comments on any UK newspaper are welcome but be warned, someone somewhere is bound to disagree with you 
25 Replies and 2940 Views in Total. [ 1 2 ]
Posted: 19:51 Apr 16 2003
We have the Mail on Saturday's and Sundays and the Guardian/Observer or Independant.
Posted: 20:12 Apr 16 2003
Personally, i like both and read both. I read the Daily Mail and the Times. I read them with two different purposes (if you could call it that) the Times for indepth reports and something to get into and the Mail whilst i'm eating breakfast because it's an easy read for me 
Posted: 20:13 Apr 16 2003 
I very rarely read any of the tabloids, though years ago i read The Mirror. We get the Newcastle Journal and the Evening Chronicle which deals almost exclusively with local news. The odd national story creeps in too. When i'm on holiday, i tend to go back to the Mirror but i don't miss it as a whole.
Posted: 20:17 Apr 16 2003
I read the Sun and I enjoy it...granted it isn't the most intellectual paper going but it gives you the basic gist of whats going on which is all I'm looking for really. If a story really catches my eye then I'll go off and research it elsewhere but I usually get all the commentary on said issues from BBC News 24 in the morning before work.
Posted: 20:29 Apr 16 2003 
What he said
by Milky
I read the Sun and I enjoy it...granted it isn't the most intellectual paper going but it gives you the basic gist of whats going on which is all I'm looking for really. If a story really catches my eye then I'll go off and research it elsewhere but I usually get all the commentary on said issues from BBC News 24 in the morning before work.
Posted: 20:41 Apr 16 2003
The problem with Newspapers is all in the name. When you hear the word ‘news’, there is a temptation to equate it with ‘facts’ or even ‘truth’ but that is not what it is. It’s the presentation of information. In the process of presenting, they reduce the world in its infinite complexity, to something more manageable and in that reduction, even the most well meaning of presenters would inevitably reduce the quotient of truth in their reports.
And our newspapers are not well meaning. They deliberately skew facts, ignore others entirely, misinterpret, obfuscate and obscure reality.
They do this for two reasonsÂ… to pander to their readership, and to expound the beliefs of their owners. The two are symbiotically linked since it is human nature to see patterns; to seek out those things that confirm our world view and downplay those that donÂ’t.
People donÂ’t just become left wing by reading the Guardian, they read the Guardian because it is left wingÂ… and so on and so on.
So the choice between tabloids and broadsheets is a choice of world view and a reflection of the beliefs of the readers. The tabloids are more successful in selling their view of the world, mostly because it revolves around naked women, celebrity gossip and football. It’s reassuring… the tabloid world is not a complicated place to live… the French, gays and lesbians, Muslims, immigrants and intellectuals are BAD. The English (especially if you are white), heterosexuals, Christians, honest salt of the earth working class blokes and most of all ‘Our Boys’ are GOOD.
The broadsheets have their own prejudices and often they are not so different when you pay close attention but they at least make a gesture towards analysis, complexity and differing perspectives.
All in all, we get the press we deserve. Perhaps a more interesting question is ‘Tabloid readers vs. broadsheet readers’!
For what its worth, I scan the Guardian Online each day to keep current and The Economist once a week to put the GuardianÂ’s left wing slant in context.
And our newspapers are not well meaning. They deliberately skew facts, ignore others entirely, misinterpret, obfuscate and obscure reality.
They do this for two reasonsÂ… to pander to their readership, and to expound the beliefs of their owners. The two are symbiotically linked since it is human nature to see patterns; to seek out those things that confirm our world view and downplay those that donÂ’t.
People donÂ’t just become left wing by reading the Guardian, they read the Guardian because it is left wingÂ… and so on and so on.
So the choice between tabloids and broadsheets is a choice of world view and a reflection of the beliefs of the readers. The tabloids are more successful in selling their view of the world, mostly because it revolves around naked women, celebrity gossip and football. It’s reassuring… the tabloid world is not a complicated place to live… the French, gays and lesbians, Muslims, immigrants and intellectuals are BAD. The English (especially if you are white), heterosexuals, Christians, honest salt of the earth working class blokes and most of all ‘Our Boys’ are GOOD.
The broadsheets have their own prejudices and often they are not so different when you pay close attention but they at least make a gesture towards analysis, complexity and differing perspectives.
All in all, we get the press we deserve. Perhaps a more interesting question is ‘Tabloid readers vs. broadsheet readers’!
For what its worth, I scan the Guardian Online each day to keep current and The Economist once a week to put the GuardianÂ’s left wing slant in context.
Posted: 21:30 Apr 16 2003
It's like everything really, if you only rely on one source for information you'll never be able to work out what's "actually" going on, even then what is "actually" going on is usually subject to interpretation itself.
Posted: 21:51 Apr 16 2003
Its Like when people get snobby because people arent reading the broadsheets, a lot of the time its the same story with bigger words. Everybodys got there own agenda and Facts are secondplace
Posted: 23:32 Apr 16 2003
what i noticed in the previous forum was the disscusion between newpaper rag the sun owned by Murdock, and Sky tv being inforamtive blah blah blah, when i fact Sky Tv is also owned by Murdock as is the Times.....
oh btw weve always got the Mirror, its been good and bad, but my family is old labour and the Mirror was always a labour newpaper,and its had its good days and bad days.
oh btw weve always got the Mirror, its been good and bad, but my family is old labour and the Mirror was always a labour newpaper,and its had its good days and bad days.
Posted: 00:13 Apr 17 2003 
I read The Independent and The Guardian daily; the Indy for its news and columnists, and the Grauniad for its “G2” features section. Have I picked them because they corroborate my worldview? To an extent yes, because it is my worldview; but they both contain, particularly the Indy, much to challenge it. (Liberal-lefty-libertarian, for those who’re lucky enough to have been spared it.)
Newspapers are, as Inc notes above, by their very nature reductivist; truths have to be omitted and compounded to prevent every report being the length of War and Peace. In and of itself, this is no bad thing; if there were no editing, news would become unmanageable, the thrust of the report lost amongst a welter of unnecessary facts. The crux here is who is doing the editing, and to what purpose; who decides what’s “unnecessary”? Every ostensible “fact” is presented through the hand of a biased, subjective writer. The key to a good news source requires two vital elements: the writers’ self-awareness of bias, and a conscious effort to fight against it.
Virtually everyone who makes it into Fleet Street possesses the first quality; the more ardent the propaganda, the more essential it is. But the second is a rare and invaluable commodity, and its presence cannot be overwhelmingly grouped into any one paper, though the proportion of it rises significantly in certain publications over others.
The tabloids are overtly and intentionally biased. They blithely ignore the most important tenet of good news reporting; that news and opinion must be demonstrably separate. Whatever their political slant, their news coverage follows. This is a double-edged sword; it’s extremely dangerous when people accept what they read as “news” for “fact”, but it’s also very easy to spot. The problem is, many people follow the corrosive and potent received idea that what’s in print is automatically conferred with authority.
The broadsheets all make the pretence of distinction, but this can just be a better shroud for partiality. For example, The Times pushes Rupert Murdoch’s agenda just as ruthlessly as The Sun, but a lot more subtly. This doesn’t make it as worthless a source for news as the other rag however, because it also features dissenting voices and many more facts. Provided the reader is aware of the nature of a paper’s bias, much useful information can be extrapolated from its reports. By contrast The Sun pushes sublimely clever propaganda brilliantly disguised as irrelevant idiocy from cover to cover, and is not above omitting major stories that don’t fit with its agenda. A recent example is their utter failure to report at all the contentious bombing of an Iraqi market place.
Corroboration of facts and a healthy scepticism are the best and most obvious ways to get to the truth; treating The Guardian as gospel is as foolish as deifying the Daily Mail. On the whole, I think the Grauniad prints overwhelmingly more of worth than the Mail, as do the other broadsheets. But you’ll only be able to make the best use out of those truths when you can separate them from their accompanying prejudices, and it’s no small task.
Alternatively, you could just read the sports section …
Newspapers are, as Inc notes above, by their very nature reductivist; truths have to be omitted and compounded to prevent every report being the length of War and Peace. In and of itself, this is no bad thing; if there were no editing, news would become unmanageable, the thrust of the report lost amongst a welter of unnecessary facts. The crux here is who is doing the editing, and to what purpose; who decides what’s “unnecessary”? Every ostensible “fact” is presented through the hand of a biased, subjective writer. The key to a good news source requires two vital elements: the writers’ self-awareness of bias, and a conscious effort to fight against it.
Virtually everyone who makes it into Fleet Street possesses the first quality; the more ardent the propaganda, the more essential it is. But the second is a rare and invaluable commodity, and its presence cannot be overwhelmingly grouped into any one paper, though the proportion of it rises significantly in certain publications over others.
The tabloids are overtly and intentionally biased. They blithely ignore the most important tenet of good news reporting; that news and opinion must be demonstrably separate. Whatever their political slant, their news coverage follows. This is a double-edged sword; it’s extremely dangerous when people accept what they read as “news” for “fact”, but it’s also very easy to spot. The problem is, many people follow the corrosive and potent received idea that what’s in print is automatically conferred with authority.
The broadsheets all make the pretence of distinction, but this can just be a better shroud for partiality. For example, The Times pushes Rupert Murdoch’s agenda just as ruthlessly as The Sun, but a lot more subtly. This doesn’t make it as worthless a source for news as the other rag however, because it also features dissenting voices and many more facts. Provided the reader is aware of the nature of a paper’s bias, much useful information can be extrapolated from its reports. By contrast The Sun pushes sublimely clever propaganda brilliantly disguised as irrelevant idiocy from cover to cover, and is not above omitting major stories that don’t fit with its agenda. A recent example is their utter failure to report at all the contentious bombing of an Iraqi market place.
Corroboration of facts and a healthy scepticism are the best and most obvious ways to get to the truth; treating The Guardian as gospel is as foolish as deifying the Daily Mail. On the whole, I think the Grauniad prints overwhelmingly more of worth than the Mail, as do the other broadsheets. But you’ll only be able to make the best use out of those truths when you can separate them from their accompanying prejudices, and it’s no small task.
Alternatively, you could just read the sports section …
Posted: 07:07 Apr 17 2003
Another problem with newspapers is they are ALWAYS out of date by the time you get them. They have they top story which by the time by read it is yesterdays news and the world has moved on.
Posted: 08:07 Apr 17 2003 I don't see why this is a problem unless the purpose of news is to give you some kind of vicarious thrill.
by Vinnie
Another problem with newspapers is they are ALWAYS out of date by the time you get them. They have they top story which by the time by read it is yesterdays news and the world has moved on.
Indeed, the instant quality of what was laughingly called reporting in Iraq recently rendered the entire process meaningless as anything other than spectacle. One hour's breaking news was contradicted in the following hour.
Television is now offering the news equivalent of the visual soundbite. Saddam's statue had to come down in time for American news cycles so "lets drag it over with a tractor and give the watching public a nice easy image to hang their understanding on".
Most human beings (Some people read the Sunday Sport) spend their lives trying to understand the world in which they live. To achieve that, they don't need instant gratification but balanced, reasoned analysis and reporting of events in context.
To put it another way, watching September 11 on television was spectacle without meaning, stunning though it was. Only with hindsight can we properly understand it's significance in human history.
Waiting 24 hours isn't really a problem.
Posted: 08:52 Apr 17 2003
Whenever there is a big story that goes on for several days/weeks then the 24hr delay isn't as critical, as the events will continue to evolve.
But most of the news in the papers is just a quick story which by the time the paper hits the streets has already been done to death on all the News channels/web sites so that everything that can be said/analysed has been.
But most of the news in the papers is just a quick story which by the time the paper hits the streets has already been done to death on all the News channels/web sites so that everything that can be said/analysed has been.
Posted: 09:46 Apr 17 2003
My opinions on Tabloids are well documented here. But the opportunity to spout again is far too tempting...
Yes, all editors and owners of newspapers have agendas and slants. In truth, so do the individual journalists, although this is harder to tell with some papers do to the stringency of the editorial line. But to therefore equate them all as just representing different worldviews isn't actually true.
I disagree strongly with the politics of the Torygraph, and resent the ownership of the Times by Murdoch, while taking the Grauniad and Indy as my news sources of choice. Yet I can at least respect the first two as reasonable sources of news. I may not agree with their slant, but the gist of the news pertains to actual events. Tabloids lie. Especially the Sun, Mail and News of the World. They make stories up. This isn't slant, it's mass-manipulation. Further, they invade people’s privacy where there is no public interest (by which I mean their actions affect us, as opposed to ghoulish interest in other people's personal lives). I truly believe these are not harmless comics but the purveyors of evil. They spread lies and hate with relish (no food jokes, please). To suggest they merely present another slant is to paper over the harm they cause.
And I've also said before that these are just my opinions, and that I would never equate my feelings for the tabloid with those towards the reader. My friends read tabloids. I think no less of them for it. I think they're misguided and are funding evil organizations by their actions, but that doesn't make them bad people. Lets face it, with my political and philosophical views, if I only liked people who agreed with me then I'd be pretty lonely.
So, please don't read tabloids - they are not light reads that cover the main stories. They are destroyer of lives and the spreader of lies. You'd be better of reading no paper than reading a tabloid. But then again, that's just my less than humble one.
Yes, all editors and owners of newspapers have agendas and slants. In truth, so do the individual journalists, although this is harder to tell with some papers do to the stringency of the editorial line. But to therefore equate them all as just representing different worldviews isn't actually true.
I disagree strongly with the politics of the Torygraph, and resent the ownership of the Times by Murdoch, while taking the Grauniad and Indy as my news sources of choice. Yet I can at least respect the first two as reasonable sources of news. I may not agree with their slant, but the gist of the news pertains to actual events. Tabloids lie. Especially the Sun, Mail and News of the World. They make stories up. This isn't slant, it's mass-manipulation. Further, they invade people’s privacy where there is no public interest (by which I mean their actions affect us, as opposed to ghoulish interest in other people's personal lives). I truly believe these are not harmless comics but the purveyors of evil. They spread lies and hate with relish (no food jokes, please). To suggest they merely present another slant is to paper over the harm they cause.
And I've also said before that these are just my opinions, and that I would never equate my feelings for the tabloid with those towards the reader. My friends read tabloids. I think no less of them for it. I think they're misguided and are funding evil organizations by their actions, but that doesn't make them bad people. Lets face it, with my political and philosophical views, if I only liked people who agreed with me then I'd be pretty lonely.
So, please don't read tabloids - they are not light reads that cover the main stories. They are destroyer of lives and the spreader of lies. You'd be better of reading no paper than reading a tabloid. But then again, that's just my less than humble one.
Posted: 11:57 Apr 17 2003
My folks buy the Mail and the Sun - a nice combination of the Far Right and the Far Below Average
(ok not strictly accurate but it doesn't work otherwise
)
(ok not strictly accurate but it doesn't work otherwise
)
Posted: 13:05 Apr 17 2003 Lately though ive seen storys that ive read in the Metro (National free paper from train stations ect) on the news a few days after its been in the paper.
by Vinnie
But most of the news in the papers is just a quick story which by the time the paper hits the streets has already been done to death on all the News channels/web sites so that everything that can be said/analysed has been.
Posted: 18:29 Apr 17 2003 Every broadsheet presents a worldview, but not nessasarily a uniform worldview. The Indy is a fine example. Their Middle-East correspondent, Robert Fisk, exhorts a strongly-opinionated worldview in all his reports, but goes out of his way to make his own biases clear to the reader, who can then choose which, if any, to accept. Other Indy correspondents, such as Johann Hari, Young Journalist of the Year, do likewise along with many writing for The Times, Guardian and Telegraph.
by Jayjay
My opinions on Tabloids are well documented here. But the opportunity to spout again is far too tempting...
Yes, all editors and owners of newspapers have agendas and slants. In truth, so do the individual journalists, although this is harder to tell with some papers do to the stringency of the editorial line. But to therefore equate them all as just representing different worldviews isn't actually true.
I disagree strongly with the politics of the Torygraph, and resent the ownership of the Times by Murdoch, while taking the Grauniad and Indy as my news sources of choice. Yet I can at least respect the first two as reasonable sources of news. I may not agree with their slant, but the gist of the news pertains to actual events.
No broadsheet's bias is pervasive enough to render them a poor source of facts -- they know their readership after all, and know what it'll stand for. It's part self-interest and part respect for the news: if the paper is found to be peddling lies, their demographic will discover it and hold it against them more readily than the tabloids'.
Tabloids lie. Especially the Sun, Mail and News of the World. They make stories up. This isn't slant, it's mass-manipulation. Further, they invade people’s privacy where there is no public interest (by which I mean their actions affect us, as opposed to ghoulish interest in other people's personal lives). I truly believe these are not harmless comics but the purveyors of evil. They spread lies and hate with relish (no food jokes, please). To suggest they merely present another slant is to paper over the harm they cause
This is what the tabloids have traded on for years -- people ridicule them, but deep down, the powerful fear them, knowing the power they have to make and break. The Sun is at the moment the worst offender -- under Rebekah Wade, it has lurched far to the bigoted right, runing a vile, deeply racist campaign against refugees, and gleefully printing callous, jingoistic support for war in Iraq, calling all who oppose it "traitors". All the others -- Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Mirror (putting aside Piers Morgan's tiresome ephemeral epithanies) -- are little better, forever willing to sacrifice innocent people on the alter of celebrity and scandal. Not all "purveyors of evil" perhaps, but perveyors of malign, manipulative trash certainly.
I can't really get round this one, much as I try. If you buy a tabloid every day, you add to its circulation figures and its power; in this way, you tacitly support everything it's doing. If people didn't buy them, they wouldn't have the power and influence they do, as simple as that.
And I've also said before that these are just my opinions, and that I would never equate my feelings for the tabloid with those towards the reader. My friends read tabloids. I think no less of them for it. I think they're misguided and are funding evil organizations by their actions, but that doesn't make them bad people. Lets face it, with my political and philosophical views, if I only liked people who agreed with me then I'd be pretty lonely.
So, please don't read tabloids - they are not light reads that cover the main stories. They are destroyer of lives and the spreader of lies. You'd be better of reading no paper than reading a tabloid. But then again, that's just my less than humble one.
If The Guardian and The Independent ran a campaign against refugees or attacked people because of their sexuality, I would stop buying them at least until their editors changed.
It's all very well to disavow responsibility for a paper's actions by saying you disagree with it, and I genuinely believe many tabloid readers do. But if the readers don't give them the power they enjoy, who does?
(Edited by Byron 17/04/2003 20:10)
Posted: 20:07 Apr 17 2003 
The Sun or Star is fine for me. Milky summed it up really. But the Sunday Sport is a godsend!! (That was a joke by the way)
Posted: 01:26 Apr 18 2003 [ 1 2 ]