To what extent do the best selling UK newspapers cover stories related to serious issues? To what extent would you think that it is their role to do so? In your opinion does the tabloid media and 'low budget entertainment' (reality shows, soaps) have too much power and influence in this country?
Most of the popular daily tabloid newspapers such as the Sun, the Mirror, the Star do not cover the most important stories on a daily basis. These papers seems to be more interested in trivia that is related to celebrity stardom. An example of this is the Tiger Woods story which exploded into the public consciousness and details of the events were written with lurid headlines.
Unfortunately real news is often hard to find in the major tabloid newspapers. Only the Daily Mail and the Express newspapers explore seriously newsworthy stories. For the most part, serious stories are only covered by the quality newspapers including the tabloid Times and broadsheets such as the Telegraph, Guardian and Independent.
When a popular tabloid attempts to tackle serious newsworthy issues they tend to dramatise aspects of the story by giving unbalanced views which are suits their readership. By comparison the respected quality newspapers and broadsheet tend to be more balanced in their editorial as they give opinion and comment from a wider spectrum. The reason for this is that their readership expects and demands more information and background to stories as they are more discerning readers.
In my opinion I think that newspapers have a duty to inform its readership on serious issues because they are responsible for gathering information and reporting it to its readers. It seems in my view that the tabloid newspapers have discharged responsibility from reporting serious news in favour of sensationalist celebrity gossip. One could argue that they have almost abandoned reporting serious news and left it to the quality broadsheet newspapers.
It seems that tabloids and low budget entertainment such as reality shows and soaps have enormous powers of persuasion as they can influence their large audiences with the less important news and gossip. I concede that they have a purpose in entertaining the mass market who would argue that the lighthearted nature and sometimes provides relief from the more serious news issues.
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