Photojournalism and the Tabloid Press - Karin E. Becker

Before photos were around in the press, newspapers consisted of just pages of text. Nowadays, a photo will be on the front cover of every newspaper, and will have several photos within it, especially in the tabloid press.

In the early 1840's, illustrated magazines were launching across Europe, which hired illustrators to portray what was going on through pictures, rather than words. The 'Illustrated London News' is an example of this, which was founded in 1842.

Photojournalism began with magazines using wood engravings, as aposed to actual photographs that would have been technically impossible to us at the time. There was huge competion among publications to be the first with their reports, and well known artists were hired to cover important events and get them back before anyone else could. An example of this is the hanging of anti-slavery movement leader John Brown in 1859, which saw 16 engravers work through the night in order to meet the press deadline.

In the 1920's, sensationalism in photography was appearing, with sex, violence, scandal etc major talking points in the tabloid papers.

In today's tabloids, that trend continues. With such an emphisis on celebrity lifestyle in the tabloids, photography and written word go hand in hand. For example, with headlines such as 'Beckham's new haircut' and a picture of it underneath, this is a far more effective way of telling people what David Beckham's haircut looks like than just describing it through text.

This can of course, be as effective for more serious and important matters, such as the September 11 attacks for example.


There a virtualy no words on this entire front cover, except a small headline reading 'Day that changed the world'. The huge picture stirs more emotion than any amount of words could.






Tabloids usually use three different types of pictures. Firstly, a picture of 'the event', such as the one pictured above. These are usually at the time of when something is happening, again, like the one above, this picture was taken seconds after the impact of the planes on 9/11. Secondly, pictures of normal people in their normal surroundings to stir emotion. An example of this being the pictures of the two girls murdered by Ian Huntley, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. The picture was of two friends with their arms round each other, in one of their houses, in Manchester United shirts. This was emotional as it showed a cruel injustice on two innocent, normal girls. The third being the 'candid' shot. These are photos of people who don't necesarilly know that the photo is being taken. This can of a celebrity doing something embaressing for example or a footballer scoring a goal. A recent example of this would be Kate Moss snorting lines of coke.

Photos and text compliment each other in the press and are not as effective alone. A single photo with no surrounding text can cause the reader/viewer to think 'so what?' where as text alone may not draw people's attention.