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History of paparazzi and tabloid journalism

Last reviewed: April 9, 2010 ~4 min read

History Of Paparazzi and Tabloid Journalism

Paparazzi are photographers who make a living by taking photos of celebrities. They are paid up by their clients who include: gossip magazines, celebrity blogs and traditional news outlet.

Tabloid journalism is journalism that includes use of brief news content, an abundance of pictures, some fiction, and often they blatantly appealed to the human interest in crime, sex, and disaster this type of journalism employs sensationalism as a device to capture readers' attention. Sensationalism is the use of material intended to produce a startling or scandalous effect, especially one pertaining to the senses.

Tabloids attempt to captivate the masses with their colors and headlines about wonderful, amazing, and even shocking stories. Tabloid journalism tends to be aimed at a mass market and chooses colorful topics which are likely to be controversial. Tabloid journalism has existed since the last century when many abuses were uncovered. Tabloids helped exposed evils such as the lack of proper industrial safety and thus had a useful function in their defense. Power brings responsibility.

History of paparazzi and tabloid journalism

The origin of the word "paparazzi" is speculated to have come from Federico Fellini's 1960s film "La Dolce Vita." Fellini was inspired to make the movie after an At the most basic level, paparazzi hang out on the streets and in public places waiting for an opportunity to photograph a star. In public, the paparazzi can snap away unhindered by laws. But for a paparazzo who wants to make the big bucks, this method is far too inefficient. Paparazzi must make sure they are in the right place at the right time to get the shot.

Paparazzi work a lot like private detectives. Each paparazzo culls a network of informers to help keep tabs on celebrity targets. These informers can be people who work in businesses frequented by celebrities, such as restaurants, shops or salons. The paparazzo often pays for this information. In many cases, people who work for the star might be bribed to divulge the whereabouts of their employer (Kane, 2010).

The word "tabloid" comes from the name given by the London-based pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Co. To the compressed tablets they marketed as "Tabloid Pills" in the late 1880s. The connotation of "tabloid" was soon applied to other small items and to the "compressed" journalism that condensed stories into a simplified, easily-absorbed format (Eva, 2010).

A tabloid is often a weekly or semi-weekly alternative newspaper that focuses on local interest stories and entertainment, sometimes distributed free of charge, or a newspaper that tends to emphasize sensational crime stories, gossip columns repeating scandalous innuendos about the personal lives of celebrities and sport stars, and other so-called "junk food news." The tabloid newspaper format is mainly popular in United Kingdom and its page magnitude is approximately 17 by 11 inches (430 mm x 280 mm). Its best example being British tabloid is "Daily Mail" (Eva, 2010).

This mode of journalism and newspaper publishing has been exported to different other countries including the United States. The daily tabloids in the U.S. -which date back to the founding of the "New York Daily News" in 1919-are generally much less overheated and less oriented towards scandals and sensationalism than their British counterparts. With the exclusion of the supermarket tabloids, which have little conventional credibility, the word "tabloid" in the U.S. can refer more to format than to content. Supermarket tabloids are published by American Media, Inc. And the major titles are: "The National Enquirer," "Star," "The Globe," "Sun," "National Examiner" and "Weekly World News."

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PaperDue. (2010). History of paparazzi and tabloid journalism. PaperDue. https://www.paperdue.com/essay/history-of-paparazzi-and-tabloid-1519

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