The Newsmongers: A History of Tabloid Journalism Terry Kirby
Event details
From the first printed ‘Strange Newes’ sheets of the 16th century to the sensationalism of today’s digital age, author Terry Kirby will reveal the seedy history of tabloid journalism.
Drawing on his book The Newsmongers, Terry will explore Regency gossip writers through New York’s ‘yellow journalism’ battles to the ‘sex and sleaze’ Sun of the 1970s; and from the Brexit-backing populism of the Daily Mail to the celebrity-obsessed Mail Online of the 2000s.
Along the way, he’ll bring colourful figures such as Daniel Defoe, Lord Northcliffe, Hugh Cudlipp, Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell to vivid life. From scandalous confessions to the Leveson Inquiry, Terry will examine journalists’ unscrupulous methods, taking in phone hacking, privacy breaches and bribery.
Join Terry and hear how, in the digital era, popular journalism succumbed to ‘churnalism’ while a certain royal is seeking revenge on the tabloids today.
Book sales
You can buy copies of many of our speakers’ books from Fox Lane Books, a local independent bookseller and Festival partner. In some cases, author signed bookplates are available too.
Photo credit: Max Kirby
About the speaker
Terry Kirby is Senior Lecturer in Journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of The Trials of the Baroness (1991). He has been a journalist for more than four decades and was a founder member of staff at The Independent, where he worked for more than 20 years in a number of roles, including crime correspondent, night editor and chief reporter. His latest book is The Newsmongers: A History of Tabloid Journalism (Reaktion Books, 2024).
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