#2 Supermarket Tabloids

     The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

    We have lived in this world long enough to know that tabloids create buzz, attention and drama. Tabloids usually have some out languish headline or something blown out of proportion. When you take a deep dive into what tabloid means, you get a sense of what I am talking about. Tabloid is a newspaper having pages half the size of those of a standard newspaper, typically popular in style and dominated by headlines, photographs, and sensational stories. Tabloids are found anywhere these days and cannot escape them. 

    The most frequent place they are found at would be supermarkets. The choice of putting tabloids in a supermarket is good advertising and marketing strategy for companies. At supermarkets, you found thousands of people on the move throughout the day. Tabloids are often placed near the grocery line to grab the customer's attention while they wait to be check out. Tabloids usually have headlines that stick out like a sore thumb. The tabloids contain very outrageous headlines and are seen in bright bold big letters across it. This allows the readers to be intrigued to pick up the tabloid and surf through it. Tabloids are placed to gain exposure and try to get the customer to buy it. If you wait in a long line at a supermarket, you  skim through it and find the story is over exaggerated from the headline. Moving on, let's get into most popular tabloids to be featured in supermarkets. This specific type of tabloid creates the most publicity and are seen just about every supermarket. 

    National Enquirer is the most famous tabloid of today. Now I know when you've been at the front of the supermarket patiently waiting for your turn, you have seen the National Enquirer display. National Enquirer is one of the most controversial tabloids. They usually entail stories that feature the top celebrities' biggest secrets or bombshells. As you dive deeper, the story is not as exciting as the headline makes out to be. Sometimes the stories assume too much and it is not as it seems. The National Enquirer likes to spin certain stories to create havoc and publicity. The outside of the newspaper on the front page, the headline is labeled in big yellow lettering to entice readers to take a look. For example this one article about Barack and Michelle Obama marriage on the rocks. The newspaper states Barack's infidelity and tell-all. The source of the rumors were false and just gossip. That is basically the point of National Enquirer to stir up drama and chaos for readers to engage in.  Your daily dose of drama will be summed up in an article featured throughout the store. 

    Another famous tabloid is The Sun. The Sun is a very peculiar newspaper. Not only does feature celebrities' gossip but also conspiracy theories and obscure findings. The Sun was founded in 1964 as a successor to the Daily Herald, and became a tabloid in 1969 after it was purchased by its current owner. It is published by the News Group Newspapers division of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (The Sun Wiki). Headlines shown below from The Sun insinuate bizarre stories and gossip. Joseph Gordon-Levitt once said "Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy." These tabloids bring turmoil and confusion to celebrities whose business was either fabricated or disclosed to unknown sources.  

    The thing I can say is that The National Enquirer and The Sun do best is creating mayhem, buzz, and scandals. Overall, they execute their job at making people upset and uncomfortable and will continue to do so. Even though print journalism has been a fixture in a society for years in supermarkets, with the work of  more and more advanced technology, print journalism will cease to exist. Soon your local supermarkets will not carry tabloids and showcase tabloids in supermarkets through social media.