In seminar we discussed Alfred Harmsworth (Lord Northcliff) and Tabloid Nation. Harmsworth set up the Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail. He took Hearst's idea of selling the front page of the newspaper to the audience with pictures and bigger headlines etc. He also brought yellow journalism to the UK. He also wanted the Daily Mirror to be for women, so he hired women journalists to write for the newspapers which had never been done before. However this didnt work well so he fired all the women journalists.
We considered the comparisons between Hearst and Harmsworth, a good point that was made was that Harmsworth wasn't afraid to try new things and fail whereas Hearst was. Hearst didn't want to fail at anything and was what seems to be very arrogant when it came to his newspapers. Harmsworth would try new things like with his women columns and new that even if it didn't work out he could try again. Hearst was also considerably more ruthless than Harmsworth, he would do anything to gain a story. Harmsworth was more of a businessman than Hearst, he didnt just concentrate on the newspaper he also used his newspaper to gain political power.
The tabloid nation has an interesting quote that we noticed, that advertisers must be pleased. If advertisers aren't pleased with the content of the newspaper then they won't pay to advertise in that newspaper so it would lose money. This stops the journalists writing with complete freedom. Also could mean there would be some corruption in what is written if the advertisements want an opinion to be made on certain issues.
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