Tackles and sidesteps

Abstract

Since the introduction of the first tabloid to the South African market in 2001, and seeminglyincreasing with each subsequent entrant into this burgeoning market, debates about their role,the reasons for their success, their potential, and their ethics (or the lack thereof) have been ragingin the popular press. This debate seems to suggest, among other things, that the questions raisedby the introduction of tabloids are of primary concern to producers and consumers of the mediaitself – in other words, that tabloids need to be dealt with within the domain of the popular pressitself. In this paper I argue that while these debates are seemingly set on evaluating the tabloidmedia, they also reveal – and perhaps even more so – the dominant normative assumptions andprofessional ideologies in the mainstream media. In debating and rejecting the journalistic excessesof the tabloids, these debates served as a form of paradigm repair to restore the image of anoccupation in trouble. The question to be investigated by looking at these debates is whether thewidespread criticism of tabloids should be seen as part of journalistic ritual, namely the routineapplication of ethical guidelines and the performance of professional standards, or whether thesedebates went deeper to provide a structural critique of the South African media.