Every once in awhile I learn something that has some actual intellectual value. This little piece of knowledge was gathered during the time I spent interning in London. It was originally written as a paper for my class.
Never use anonymous sources. Always verify information with multiple sources. Always cite those sources. Always tell the truth. A journalist’s integrity is all they have and one slip up could discredit a journalist forever. These are the things that are drilled into our heads over and over in all of our journalism classes because they are the foundation for journalism. But some people just ignore them, or maybe they never learned about them, or maybe they just don’t care, and these are people who report for and edit tabloids. There are some in the U.S, but there are a lot in the U.K. and they are very widely read.
According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the top three most widely read papers in the U.K. are The Sun (circulation 2,582,301), the Daily Mail (circulation 1,945,496) and the Daily Mirror (circulation 1,102,810), which are all tabloids, filled with sensational headlines and questionable news. The top 3 most widely read papers in the U.S. are The Wall Street Journal (circulation 2,117,796), USA Today (circulation 1,829,099) and the New York Times (circulation 916,911), which are all largely trusted papers with high ethical standards. More people read The Sun than The Wall Street Journal. The majority of people who are reading newspapers in the U.K. are getting sensationalized, questionable news.
Last semester in my History of American Journalism class, I learned about how journalism has changed over time in America. It used to be all tabloids and all sensationalized news, but then, over time, higher ethical standards came into place and tabloids were phased out and replaced with ethical journalism. This transition shows how America began to respect journalism as a profession. It seems as though the U.K. is lagging behind the U.S. It’s still in the phase of sensationalized news and tabloids, and over time it will follow a pattern similar to the U.S. and journalism will gain more respect.
I think a major turning point is happening right now for the U.K. with the phone hacking scandal. It seems as though every tabloid in the U.K. was hacking into people’s phones for information. All the editors and higher-ups of these papers claim they all knew nothing about it. One of my co-interns made the observation that if many papers in the U.K. were hacking into people’s phones, it is probably happening all over the world, and even in the U.S. I disagree for several reasons. I think if you know what to look for it would be easy to spot. The reporter would either not cite a source or cite an anonymous source, which would instantly put up a red flag. In journalism, anyone should be able to point to a piece of information and be able to easily trace it back to a source. Also, I think the U.S. is stricter on libel. A person in the U.S. would probably make a huge deal out of their phone being hacked, whereas it seemed to slip under the radar for several years in the U.K.
The popularity of tabloids in Britain shows that the U.K. doesn’t regard journalism as a highly respected profession. In the U.S, journalists go to school for at least four years and take several classes on journalism ethics and the practice before getting a job in the industry. Many people I work with at my internship at CBS didn’t even study journalism in school. I think that because of all the scandalous tabloids and sensationalized news reported in the U.K. many people just don’t respect it. I think the U.S. holds journalism to a higher standard, it’s a respected profession, and regarded more highly than in the U.K.
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