Resembling the quality newspapers
“The admonition to avoid sensationalism is generally translated to mean that journalists must keep their reporting within the boundaries of community standards of good taste.” (Iggers, 1999, p45)
Even though tabloids are much cheaper or free their aim is to appeal to as many people as possible, most of the time tabloids use techniques of tabloidization to make news more scandalous in order to sell more. However this is not always the case, for instance when the news about David Bowie’s death dominated the front pages most of the tabloid news papers decided to use the most iconic and the most popular picture of the artist hoping that would attract more attention. ‘London Evening Standard’ done something different, as a free publication financed by advertisement it chose to put a much more realistic picture of Bowie. The picture very much resembled what the quality newspaper ‘The Independent’ chose to use as the front-page cover. This might seem unusual for a tabloid to use a picture like that yet in some ways it also comes in as a better sale (or in this case distribution) point. This gives the artist a more human look, we can relate to the person that he really was rather than the icon that we known him for in the music industry.
Even thought this tabloid newspaper shows the editorial choices in picture as a quality newspaper, it also still has the basic elements of the tabloid; the big bold headline and the scandalous twist “secret battle”.
‘The Independent’ does not need the scandal in order to sell it will even without the picture and short text with the directions of where to find a special tribute to the artist is clear and the readers can enjoy that when they want to.
Tabloids cant do without sensational news and exaggeration of stories that what makes them tabloids, where as quality papers have more bold news in them, providing people with news instead of scandal.
