Sex and sensationalism: a history of the tabloids

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. Tableau journalists often get a bad press. From publishing libelous headlines to hacking celebrities' phones, recent years haven't exactly done much to enhance Fleet Street's reputation. But where did tabloid journalism originally come from? And have media barons always had such a profound influence on current affairs?

Well, in today's episode, journalism lecturer Terry Kirby talks to John Balcombe about the evolution of the popular press, covering everything from Georgian gossip sheets to the rise of the empire of Rupert Murdoch. So, Terry, your new book, The Newsmongers, covers the entire history of tabloid journalism right through to the digital age. Before we get going, what do we actually mean when we say the word tabloid? Tabloid is a word that is in very popular, well-known use now. But it's a relatively modern word.

It came into being in the latter half of the 19th century as a sort of portmanteau description of a new type of medicine that was being marketed by what became known as the Welcome Drugs Company, now quite again quite well-known, eh? And it was a portmanteau word that described a tablet and alkaloid. And it became into popular use as something that was a sort of concentrated form of almost anything. It had never been applied to newspapers. On the night of December 31st, 1900, on the eve of what was then considered to be the start of the new century, January 1st, 1901, Alfred Harmsworth, who was the founder of the Daily Mail and a sort of dazzling genius of popular newspapers, was invited by Pulitzer.

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