• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Zippy Facts Logo

Zippy Facts

Interesting Random Facts

  • Animals
  • Culture
  • Firsts
  • Food
  • Geography
  • Health
  • History
  • Inventions
  • Language
  • Mythology
  • Odds
  • People
  • Religion
  • Science
  • Space
  • Universe
  • World
You are here: Home / Language / How did the Phrase “Tabloid Journalism” Originate and What Does it Mean?

How did the Phrase “Tabloid Journalism” Originate and What Does it Mean?

May 7, 2020 by Karen Hill

On March 4, 1884, a British drug company registered the word tabloid for a very small tablet it was marketing.

About the same time, large broadsheet newspapers were challenged by small-format journals, and because tabloid had come to mean anything small, that’s what the new papers were called.

These tabloids often resorted to gossip instead of hard news, which gave sloppy reporting the name “tabloid journalism.”

Related Facts

  • History of Newspapers
  • Where does the word “tabloid” come from and What does tabloid mean?
  • How does the Pulitzer Prize Board pick Pulitzer Prize winners every year?
  • What was the European Age of Exploration?
  • How do Editors write headlines for daily newspapers such as the New York Post?
  • Top 25 Inventions That Changed the World

Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « What Does the Term “Close Quarters” Mean and Where Did it Come From?
Next Post: Where did the Expression “the Third Degree” Come From and What Does it Mean? »

Footer

Follow

  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Categories

Accomplishments Animals Culture Firsts Food Geography Health History Inventions Language Mythology Odds People Religion Science Space Universe World Your Body

About

Zippy Facts empowers the world by serving educational content that is accessible to everyone.

A tribute to growing up, zippyfacts.com showcases interesting and unusual facts about the world.

Our mission is to use technology to facilitate knowledge transfer and sharing.

Copyright © 2020 Zippy Facts

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy