Sun

Sun February 7th, 2011

The two tabloids I purchased, Sun and The National Examiner, are actually made by the same company: American Media. Imagine that. Anyway. It seems the tabloids really want to scare you or at least catch your attention enough so that you will read it and buy it. The first article in the sun is "CAN YOU DRINK YOUR WATER AND SURVIVE?" That's a bit ridiculous, well really ridiculous. Of course I can drink water and survive. Are you kidding me? It ends up being about the toxic chemicals mentioned in the movie Erin Brockovich. Honestly I've never seen this movie, but the tabloid is saying she was wrong. This tabloid is paranoid. In relation to the National Examiner, Sun has more psychic and supernatural articles. There's aliens, psychics, pet psychics, ghosts, and vicious unidentifiable bloodsucking creatures. There is also health advice section titled "Good Doctor". Most of this information comes across as valid, but it's shady. I feel like the tabloid wants me to believe it too much. So much that it seems like bullshit. Additionally because of the strange mixture of content, the serious news and then aliens, it is especially hard to take it seriously.
I'm still pretty confused about who they're target audience is. Elderly women? Supernatural enthusiasts? People with dementia? Preteens? I'm really not sure exactly because they are so scattered and unfocused they don't send a clear message. At least not one clear message.

The National Examiner

The National Examiner dated February 7, 2011

The National Examiner’s cover is brightly colored and has many pictures of celebrity faces. The biggest words on the cover are “GAY STARS ON TV” and under it reads “WHO IS, WHO ISN’T!” The font used for this title is bigger than the name of the tabloid. Other headlines are “Meg Ryan falls for rock star!” “Caroline Kennedy Stalker Nightmare! – Creep drifter haunts Jackie O’s granddaughter” and finally “Hitler’s godson is a child molester!” They all use exclamation points and most of the words are in all caps. Also advertised on the front cover is the possibility of winning 4,315 dollars in puzzles and giveaways. Enticing.

So I open it and the first thing I read in tiger printed font “Tiger Mothers!” “Shocking way Chinese-American parents raise their kids to be overachievers”. The images take up a lot of space on the page and the paragraphs are short. Some of the paragraphs are only a sentence long. This article seems bias in some ways. It talks about how strict Chinese parents are with their children and it is pretty harsh at some points. “’Chinese mothers can say: ‘Hey, fatty, lose some weight.’”

The next page spread is ‘Bakery Fakery,’ which is an article about a Georgia Bakery that makes super realistic cakes with a word bubble that says, “These are all CAKES!” Next to each picture of a cake is a caption. For example next to the octopus cake it says, “This octopus is a real grabber.” Next to the cake that is a purse with a dog in it says, “Paris Hilton might accidentally grab this Gucci handbag toting a Yorkie.”

The next page has three parts: National Examiner Giveaway, Teen Jaywalker hit by car-then gets ticket while in coma and Treasure Hunt. The giveaway is about a chance to win a soda maker. The Teen Jaywalker is a small article about a girl who got hit by a car and got a ticket while she was in a coma. I actually saw this on CNN also. The treasure hunt is a chance to win 100 dollars by finding the symbol provided somewhere within the tabloid.

There’s really too much content to keep going on like this. I’ve noticed the headlines are huge and hard to read at times. They’re targeted audience is really hard to identify. I’ve come to the conclusion that their main target audience is women aged 10-100. There are advertisements for bras- two for 9.98 and advertisements for rings and dachshund figurines. Additionally I think they target Christians because in some articles there are Christian undertones and biases.

Defining Tabloids

Yellow journalism is a term used to describe the type of journalism found in tabloids. Yellow journalism began around 1895 to 1898 with Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal.

“Frank Luther Mott (1941) defines yellow journalism in terms of five characteristics:

1. Scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news
2. Lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings
3. Use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudo-science, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts
4. Emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips (which is now normal in the U.S.)
5. Dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system.”

Tabloids are small-format newspapers filled with simple, lurid and sensationalistic news that is normally focused on celebrities or personalities and gossip. Tabloids content can border on defamatory and the content is printed as truth because someone said it was true. As long as the writers have an “expert” or “witness” to confirm what they want them to confirm it is written as truth. Some tabloids in the USA include: Star, Sun, The Globe, The National Enquirer and The National Examiner.