Hot Topic - Tabloids

What If They Told A Good Joke And Nobody Heard It
Nothing compares to a good joke. Even at the ragged edge of show business the needle moves when the audience laughs. And low-brow humor plays well, better still with a bit of social or geographic distance. Celebrities line up for this kind of attention, then moan about it. It’s their job. It’s so dreadful to be forgotten.

A Tale Of Tabloid Troubles
Every tabloid editor knows what moves eyeballs. It’s a skill passed on generation after generation, unbound by geography. Dirt on celebrities and politicians is fine but nothing beats that grainy photo of a well-known somebody starkers. Brilliance is causing talk on the street, any street, and maybe a lawsuit. Leveraging a better business deal is genius.

Dressing Up For Fun And Profit
For the news media’s most piercing voices scandal is stock in trade, titillation is currency. The public has, it seems, an insatiable interest for stories that bring the rich, powerful or simply well-known back to earth. Feeding that human instinct is an unbeatable business model.

Working The Cannibal Angle
The public is confused. Business leaders are confused. Politicians are confused. With all that confusion, the best game going is something like Trivial Pursuit. Except in this game the winner eats the other players. Yumm!!

Damage Control And The Limits To PR
Beginning in the late 20th Century, after ‘management by objectives’ and ‘in search of excellence’ had fallen away, private sector organizations uncovered new value – and new values – in serving up well-turned phrases for two increasingly important stakeholders: investors and governments. The corporate communications industry – something between lobbying and advertising – could, it said, not only add value but create it. There are, of course, limits.

April 29, 2011, Westminster Abbey – Oh, What A Royal Media Circus For The Next Five Months And Beyond
Can you imagine the flurry to book hotel rooms and suites; trying to make appointments at the top hair and beauty parlors in London for those not travelling with their own hair and makeup artistes, will there be enough limos available -- no, we’re not talking about the guests for William and Catherine’s royal wedding April 29 at Westminster Abbey, but rather the hoards of international star journalists who will be in London for the great day. The great media frenzy is off and running.

British Politicians And Scotland Yard May Be Afraid To Take On Murdoch, But Not So The New York Times – It’s A Trans-Atlantic Newspaper War Aimed At The Jugular
Rupert Murdoch makes no secret the editorial changes he has made at his Wall Street Journal are intended to topple The New York Times as America’s newspaper of record. But the “Gray Lady” until now has mostly ginned and bared it but suddenly with an investigative report months in the making she has sunk her teeth viciously into Murdoch in the UK some 3,000 miles away from the main New York battlefield. The resulting hoop-la has the UK government, Parliament, Scotland Yard, politicians and celebrities all in a tizzy and for a change it is Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid finding itself defending itself from newspaper allegations.

What A Tangled Web We Weave…
British media is rocking as almost hourly revelations come to light about reporters stealing information on private individuals through snooping and hacking schemes. It’s hairy stuff, more than a little frightening, of an “out of control” tabloid, settlements for silence, collusion of police and, of course, Rupert Murdoch. Politicians, some targeted by the snooping, smell blood in the water.