Unlike other publications that enter this world with high ideals and lofty ambitions in matters concerning free-speech, the right-to-know, good form and all that sort of stuff – only to slowly devolve into petty, libelous innuendo rags before they cease publication altogether – the British daily The News of The World (1843 – 2011) made its appearance on Fleet Street seeming as if it was already on its way out. As the saying goes, it sold out early and beat the rush.
Although its earliest editions covered the Crimean War, as well as all the other Victorian military adventures, the paper’s editorial policy had always been positioned somewhere to the left of Whoopee – promising their readers the most titillating and sensational of articles concerning the crimes and misdemeanors generated by both high and low. NEWS OF THE WORLD was quite often the cheapest daily to be found on the newsstand.
Ten years before the attached article was penned, the scandal rag had a circulation that numbered six million, and in addition to the usual fare of dirty linen, backbiting, defamation, depreciation, disgrace, dishonor, disparagement, infamy, opprobrium, rumor, shame, sin and slander the paper also offered sports.
This article is titled “The World’s Sauciest Newspaper” and it involves the fact that The News of The World was getting even closer to the bottom than it had ever been before. By the year 2011, it was no longer called a newspaper, it was a full-fledged tabloid; owned by Rupert Murdoch (b. 1931), it imploded in a scandal entirely of its own making.
Click here to read about Punch Magazine.
