Shock! Horror!

Half the population of Britain reads one or more tabloid newspapers every day. The industry is thriving and the tradition of tabloid journalism has even been exported to America. This is an anecdotal and documentary account of what happens in the tabloid press on both sides of the Atlantic, its ethical implications and its role in maintaining a wide-ranging, living press. The book is based on over 120 interviews with door-stepping reporters, paparazzi, gossip and advice columnists, astrologers and two underground reporters who specialize in sexual exposes. The author is a journalist and media historian with a PhD in mass media law, and she has published a biography of the journalist Walter Duranty.