Facts, Fallacies, and Fears of TABLOIDIZATION

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Nov, 1999 by Linn Jr. Washington

Many mainstream media managers applauded themselves in early 1999 for not running with a story that Pres. Clinton fathered the teenaged son of a black former prostitute in Arkansas, despite the story being "out there" on the Internet, in a few newspapers, and as fodder on some syndicated talk shows. What appeared to be another salacious chapter in the Clinton sex scandals self-destructed when DNA tests failed to prove the President's alleged paternity.

Mainstream managers cited their restraint in not going with this scandalous rumor as compelling proof that their journalistic standards--based on reporting of documented facts--still prevailed in the current media landscape saturated with the tabloid-style, "anything goes" approach to news coverage, Yet, as one media observer noted, the decision to delay running with what the New York Post headline termed the "Clinton Paternity Bombshell" was commendable, but certainly "not the mainstream news media's finest hour."

Today, the wall between the so-called fact-based standards of mainstream journalism and the "never-let-facts-stand-in-the-way-of-a-good-story" standards associated with tabloid journalism is porous. Frequently, the standards that supposedly separate mainstream journalism from tabloid journalism--ranging from stories about Bill Clinton to to those concerning former football star/ actor O.J. Simpson--can be a distinction without a difference.

Erosion in the wall separating mainstream. and tabloid standards is the subject of soul searching, sparking a healthy debate both in and outside of journalism. However, for many advocates of media quality, particularly racial minorities, this debate is largely irrelevant because it does not address long-standing questions of deficient, biased coverage by both mainstream and tabloid media.

Interestingly, the steady encroachment of tabloid-style journalism into mainstream media is actually having an adverse impact on tabloid publications and broadcast programs. Circulation at two leading tabloid newspapers--The National Enquirer and the Star--has dropped sharply. At the Enquirer, weekly circulation ebbed to 2,240,000 at the end of 1998, down from 5.000,000 in 1977.

The decrease in tabloid newspaper circulation parallels comparable declines in viewership of tabloid television news programs. Today, just three tabloid TV news programs remain, half the number of a few years ago, and these survivors are offering more tame presentations. One explanation for the decline in tabloid TV news programs cited in a January, 1999, New York Times business section article--the migration of tabloid-style stories to "traditional news organizations"--mirrors a reason cited for the decrease in tabloid newspaper circulation contained in a 1997 Times business section article. At that time, the drop was attributed to increasing interest by the mainstream press in "sensational stories."

Some see the tabloidization of mainstream journalism as a good thing, claiming it benefits a staid medium and media consumers alike. "America's mainstream media need more tabloid values," exhorted a March, 1999, op-ed piece by British journalist Mark Steyn published in the Wall Street Journal.

Steyn, a columnist for Great Britain's Daily Telegraph, praised tabloid journalists for getting "the story" on Princess Diana's hollow marriage and Pres. Clinton's womanizing. He lambasted mainstream journalism as "house-trained," mired in "monarchical deference" instead of digging into stories and tossing some dirt along the way, "The respectable media have achieved a weird distinction: They're boring without being serious," Steyn stated, contending that the "tabloid reptiles" work harder at getting juicy stories than mainstream reporters.

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz scorched Steyn's advocacy of tabloid values on mainstream journalism. Kurtz attacked such tactics as "trading cash for information" and setting people up, citing The Globe for paying a former flight attendant to lure ABC sports announcer Frank Gifford into a hotel room for a videotaped liaison.

Mainstream journalists should not "emulate the seedier tabloid tactics," Kurtz admonished in a March, 1999, column. The only thing Kurtz and Steyn agreed on is that tabloids did a better job covering the O.J. Simpson trials than the mainstream press did.

While few feel that tabloid Visigoths are on the verge of sacking the standards of mainstream journalism, the increasing prevalence of tabloid-style stories on the pages of prestigious newspapers and on network newscasts is causing alarm. "Once tabloid topics and questionable allegations are in play, and in play widely, can newspapers and broadcast operations simply ignore them'? Do they roll over and go with the flow? Or is there something in between?," asked American Journalism Review magazine columnist Rem Rieder in his March, 1999, column.

Irrespective of the sincerity of this debate over the creep of tabloid standards into mainstream media, the issue suffers from a shortsighted focus on smoke rather than the fire. Missing from the debate is agreement to address increasing shallowness in mainstream coverage on matters of public substance.