TRASHFUTURE - *PREVIEW* Britainology 67: British Tabloids feat. Alan White

Episode Date: August 12, 2023

For this month's first Britainology, we speak with journalist Alan White (@aljwhite) of Politics Home about the strange and sordid history of Britain's tabloid press--how it never seems to change (culturally or otherwise), how it keeps getting away with things, how different its affect is from that of (equally omerta-driven) British television... and most importantly, how weird it is. Get the whole thing on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/britainology-67-87494316 *STREAM ALERT* Check out our Twitch stream, which airs 9-11 pm UK time every Monday and Thursday, at the following link: https://www.twitch.tv/trashfuturepodcast *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo’s upcoming live shows here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/live-shows Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and Alice (@AliceAvizandum)

The telegraph just sort of fills up a newspaper that's written with an audience in mind of Mr. Burns, effectively. Like, it's not like a... Like, whereas, if you're fairly conservative, you could read the Times, and be sort of happily consuming your news in a way where, oh, this seems like the news, but it's not really challenging. I remember that I seem to recall, is it David Oranovic, is it a telegraph of the Times? Is he? The Times and Melanie Griffiths, are the Times, too.

I'm not really Philips, he always makes them up. Melanie Philips's at the telegraph for the times? Is he the times and Melanie Griffiths is at the times to, or Melanie Phillips, you should, I can always mix them up. Melanie Phillips is at the times too. And so it's like, that's the thing that I make the jokes from times that it can seem like silly headlines or obvious just like outrage of the week to rye up the British voter, British reader, but then also periodically some actual like

exterminate the brews, cut down the tall trees, kind of like unsuddle messaging in the op-eds. And it's like to me, that feels like a very, the times energy, whereas the telegraph, ridiculous more than anything else. But that's not- Yeah, and a lot of like, why do my children hate me? And the price of clarity is so uncompensative.

But the ones, the really absurd ones are obviously going to be, to my eyes, like the daily mail and the sun and what is it? I mean, obviously the mirror is not as right wing but can still be ridiculous. So you got the mirror, the sun, the mail, the express. Express, yeah. God, the express.

And you could include the garbage. I don't know. Because Sunday sport is fixed. But it's a glassable sometimes. Yeah, like essentially fake. But I mean, we should talk about this because we've got basically there, like, as you say, I'd actually had missed off the express,

the newspaper that will never forget Diana. And still flying the flag. Yeah, obviously the sun, the daily mail, the daily mirror, which is kind of like the only left wing-ish tabloid. Sort of like, what if you presented sensationalist news but with like a vaguely left wing? And then the morning star is the socialist newspaper

that winds up being more kind of small sea conservative and or authoritarian. Like it's very, very, it has weirdly what you'd associate with very hardcore Tory positions on some things, mostly on social issues. Like, if, for example, if there is, if a political cartoonist can't place a political cartoon in the regular tabloids in the UK, because it's too transphobic, the star will probably publish it. Like, that's just been my experience in this country, and so it's like, but they are also like, kind of the socialist newspaper too.

Yeah, the news of the world, RIP, which will come back to you. And then, yeah, the two sort of like comedy options, which might be fun for a bit of dessert up front. We've got the daily star, which is sort of like the slightly less comedic. You know what the star is fascinating to me? Because it, so in the last, I don't know, I don't really know what any of the person I know behind it, whatever, but like... I'm just having the mixed up.

The star isn't the Communist one, is it? Which one is that? So you know, the morning star, which is what he said. Oh, it's what I said. But the star that is not the morning star, so presumably the day star is very much not communist. I can't understand. But the morning star is.

The weirdly, like that, the star in the last two or three years has weirdly become almost the voice of the resistance. Like ever since Boris Johnson came into power, it's become the king of just like killer front-pays. You know, it was the daily star that the basically put a lettuce on a podium and said, is Liz Trostkin about last this? Oh, yeah, of course.

That is before it rots to pieces and everyone was sharing it. It gave up when Dominic Cummings was claiming that he needed an eye test in Barnard Castle. It was like giving out free glasses to every reader or something like that, like I saw a headlight when I was reading resect, and it's where it was like police, colon, don't drive if you're blind. Like it's, it's genuinely quite funny sometimes, which it never used to be. So that's that's some weird thing that's happened in the last couple of years. And then yeah, what was the other one? Oh, something's for you.

So I pulled a couple of daily star front pages here. We've got one. This is a, this front page has a huge picture of Anton Deck. And it says, and I love life, long make, continue. Next to them, it has a picture of a rat and says, flooddy rise of the rats. And then the main headline is, Gemma Collins, lizard people live among us.

But then the one next to it, I saw this, and I was like, I shouldn't laugh, but it literally got me in the way it's supposed to get you in the sense that I just glanced over at my Los Notes and saw Britain's fattest woman eight-frige and die. This subhead is 6,000 calories a day from Staxion X to Bay. That's great, Jonathan. By every journalism headline should have a big any middle and end, and that is pretty, you know. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, exactly.

If they had, if they had any sense about them, the faculty of journalism schools would make people study Greg's sex with Greg's pasty boiled my bell and which is, well, that's a Sunday sport. I know it's a Sunday sport headline, but that's before I even moved to this country. I remember somebody quoting that and I'd be like, that means nothing to me. And now it means everything to me. So it's like, oh, how the table's a tree. That was very poetic.

Now it's everything. Yeah, so the star is kind of like, it's not quite a joke, but it's kind of bordering. It's like very like, as you go down the, you know, if the mirror is for a reading age of nine, the star is for a reading age of somewhere closer to infant school. But then you get the Sunday sport,

which is just fully like a sort of parody newspaper, but never breaking K-Face. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's a brilliant description. It used to be basically pornography, daily pornography. And I assume the internet killed that as a business model, basically. See, only paper to date, which still has page three. Does this tell you?

It's been nothing down to you. Yeah. Yeah. That's a phenomenon that I want him to finish because all these headlines are always so great. But the page three girl is definitely a phenomenon I want to explore. Yeah, page three is my next topic. We'll get on that. Yeah. Yeah. I think, and I want to explore. Yeah, pastry is my next topic. We'll get on that. Yeah. Yeah. I think, um, yeah, with the Sunday sport, the, I always find that Greg, so I'll often, you know, I'll tweet like, oh, looks like this broadcast is made a colossal fuck up. And almost without fail in my replies, there'll be the Sunday sports main account going, Jesus, even we wouldn't do that.

I just have to explain to people that like, what was it, my wife sucked off our neighbor while I was clapping for carers. That's one of the ones that pulled out. There are a bunch of them like this. And I'm like, the thing about it is, this isn't the onion. This isn't explicitly a parody because they don't break character, but like, it's also, you got to realize this isn't actually a real newspaper. I'm so intrigued just a lot. They're reporting that they do.

Like whether any of these stories have any truth to them, whether they've really interviewed these people. Because I mean obviously there's a lot of those people seem to be, as far as I can tell. Stock photos that they've manipulated in time. I have seen the same couple in the various infidelity ones, and it's the same people wrapped in, which I guess is quite nice kind of like the omission.

To do it to be honest, and maybe we shouldn't person it because I like the fact that they do do it and I don't want it to stop. Yeah, I don't want it to live off their business money. Yeah, just to get an export cancel. I looked over at Milo's screen and saw, I've barked 500 women pretending to be James May. And it's just like, he does kind of look like James May.

But he looks like James May after like a very bad year Yeah, there was an amazing one about a guy who looked like Matt Hancock where they'd very clearly just used a picture of Matt Hancock Just used a bad picture of Matt Hancock. I then claimed he shoved a garden no more Missile. This one is a great one in the classics on their sport style. Nick Nax turned my bell and orange. Hospital dash for Steve after corn snack binge Ascent is that we'll be living in my brain for a number of years. Hospital dash for Steve after corn snack For a sex dwarf drowns in giant trifle The subhead horror look like a waltz party or if it's the last thing you want. When you're hosting the look-alike awards party, you do not want the Boris Sx to walk to drown in the giant triathlon.

No, you don't want that. But then again, it's quite irresponsible to have a giant triathlon at an event that involves dwarves. Yes, no. That seems rude, yeah. the doors. Yes, no. That seems rude. Yeah.