What skills do journalists exhibit in sensationalising, exaggerating and otherwise ‘tabloiding’ the truth, while usually stopping short of stating unambiguous falsehoods? Why has the tabloid news not collapsed as predicted, but thrived as a medium in an age of interaction and online commentary?

This book is a comprehensive and accessible exploration of the British tabloid newspapers from the 1960s to the present day. Examining topics such as sex and the representation of women, national stereotypes and Britain’s relationship with Europe, war coverage, celebrities, investigative journalism and instances where the tabloids have misread the public mood, the author draws on Critical Discourse Analysis and Stylistics to take a language-led approach to the UK tabloids.

With its interdisciplinary approach and readable prose style, this book will be of interest to a wide range of readers across language and linguistics, media and communication, journalism, political science and British cultural studies.

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“A fascinating account of the print media in Britain is offered in Tabloiding the Truth (Buckledee, 2020). Buckledee examines issues such as national stereotypes, the tabloid representation of women and content as varied as reportage on celebrities’ love lives on one hand and war on the other. An interdisciplinary approach draws on stylistics and CDA to analyse the tabloid format of a ‘heady mix of real information and lowbrow entertainment, sensationalism and genuine investigative journalism, trashy gossip and well-informed analyses, political partnership and the self-confidence to cock a snook at the rich and powerful, plus, of course, the willingness to tell their readers both uncomfortable truths and copious quantities of bovine faeces’ (Buckledee, 2020: 181).” Simon Statham. Language and Literature 2021, Vol. 30(4), p. 417.