“TABLOID” IS A PORTMANTEAU OF “tablet” and “alkaloid”. The word was coined in the nineteenth century by ‘‘T a drugs company to market its medicines, but came to mean anything that had been compressed for easy consumption. Alfred Harmsworth, the brilliant journalist who founded the Daily Mail, was the first to apply it to a newspaper, using it describe the 1 January 1901 edition of the New York World, which he had guest-edited at the invitation of its publisher, Joseph Pulitzer. According to this history of the tabloid press, for many “tabloid” has now become shorthand for
“a kind of journalism that prioritises superficial reporting, scandal and sensation over sober facts; that specialises in gossip and innuendo; that creates and then criticises the cult of celebrity; that somehow glorifies crime, trivia and…
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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, August/September 2024