The Effect of the Wapping Revolution on British Journalism

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The Effect of the Wapping Revolution on British Journalism

In 1986, when Rupert Murdoch, the owner of News International, moved

production of his major titles (The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun

and The News of the World) from Fleet Street to Wapping, he set about

an irreversible chain reaction in the structure of journalism in the

UK.

Although I believe that some kind of major political and technological

change in the press was inevitable and arguably overdue by 1986, this

essay will argue that the Wapping Revolution itself was bad for

British journalism.

Rupert Murdoch began monopolizing the UK news market when he bought

The News of the World in 1968, followed soon after by The Sun, now the

UK's highest circulating tabloid with over 3.5m copies. By 1981 he

also owned The Times and The Sunday Times, giving him a substantial

grip on the quality newspapers, as well as the popular market.

This period in UK press history (1974 to 1989) was one of rocketing

competition and commercialization, as papers began 'spicing up' their

image and content in order to attract and retain readership and to

remain competitive.

The middle ground between tabloids and broadsheets was disappearing as

papers resorted to sex, scandal and shock tactics to make money. As a

result, standards in journalism were slipping before the Wapping

revolution, as price wars raged between newspapers. The process of

quality papers resembling their tabloid counterparts in both layout

and content is often described as tabloidization (Conboy, 2004).

A good example of declining standards in journalism prior to the

Wapping Revolution is the birth of Murdoch's T...

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...the Conflict &

Its Impact on the National Newspaper Industry", Avebury, 1992

· Conboy, "Journalism: A critical History" Sage, 2004

· Wintour, "The Rise & Fall of Fleet Street", Hutchinson, 1991

· Koss, "The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain" London,

1990

Websites Visited:

· "British Journalism Review", 1999-2004, Article by Roy Greenslade.

· www.bjr.org.uk/data/2002/no1_greenslade.htm

· "Rupert Murdoch & his papers", Extracts from the Guardian, The

Independent, Socialist Worker and Socialist Review.

· www.goacom.com/overseas-digest/Media/murdoch.htm

· "Trashy Tabloids", Investigations into the declining standards of

British Newspapers.

· www.trashytabloids.com

· "The Free Dictionary", Sources of Farlex circulation figures.

· http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com

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