Truth, Tabloids and Trolls

Don’t tell me you actually believe what you read in the press

A slice of scandal with your coffee? Picture courtesy of Pixabay

Many years ago, as a new writer doing a writing course, I decided to go off-piste and send my first assignment on-spec to a British tabloid newspaper instead of my tutor. It was an article on English grammar and, because there were no email submissions back then, I posted it to the editor of the paper’s education section.

I knew my Mum read that particular paper every day and a week later I called her and almost screamed at her to turn to page 10. She obliged and then said, “What am I looking at?”

“It’s me, Mummy! I wrote that! Look at the name. It’s me!”

Then she screamed too.

I was so proud. She was so proud of me. You can just imagine it, can’t you?

I wouldn’t be proud to be published in that newspaper anymore. I would be ashamed. It has become the epitome of trash tabloid journalism with the worrying power to wreck lives and distort reality.

Take a current example. I have been reading, with horrified fascination, the coverage of the frank interviews given by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during their tour of Africa recently. They say they are “existing not living”, that Prince William and Prince Harry are “on different paths.” Meghan…