Culture Editor Evelyn Shepphird examines the machinations of tabloids, and explains the symbiotic relationship between passé celebrity and for-profit press.
Most figures who grace the pages of The Sun are not newsworthy. Yet their outfits, dinner plans, award show appearances, and holidays are very well documented in disreputable but popular publications. And that’s not a matter of opinion: Bebe Rexha, whose feud with Azealia Banks was covered by Entertainment Weekly in May, hasn’t had a memorable hit since 2015. Chrissy Teigen, whose home decor has, inexplicably, recently made headlines, has spent a similar ten years out of notable creative work. These figures, and their contemporaries, are often still technically active: Bebe Rexha has released music as recently as 2023. But these figures have not achieved the same cultural relevancy as they had in their prime.
Acknowledging the dip in popularity of these figures, it should be that readers see less of them in tabloids. Coverage of Jesy Nelson should, theoretically, have been replaced by coverage of Tate McRae or a figure from Katseye. Yet somehow, Jesy Nelson’s feelings about her body are printed, and Katy Perry’s romantic life is still making headlines. Why?
Noam Chomsky, in ‘Manufacturing Consent’, tries to reckon with the often baffling choices made by the press of what is deemed ‘newsworthy’. His focus is political, but he helpfully outlines the way that news works in the West. The reason why, he argues, the ostensibly free press is so under the thumb of a ruling establishment – is because it is an industry reliant on capital. ‘News’ is a product. Publications – the Times, the Washington Post, The Sun – are sales companies.
Because newsagents have to make money in order to publish, to rent an office, and to pay their staff, they have a profit motive. A profit motive necessitates a cost/benefit analysis. So, for a publication like The Sun, a significant amount of research has gone into how many pages is most profitable to publish per day (around sixty-something on a weekday, one hundred-ish on a weekend.) These numbers are a slight overestimation, because The Sun, and other similar publications, need to be prepared for an especially interesting day–the death of someone famous, for example, or a shocking divorce. That said, most days are not especially interesting, leaving The Sun and other similar publications some space to fill in their print runs.
This is why small updates on celebrities – Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs dropping out of certain dates on the Oasis Live ‘25 tour to focus on his health, for example – incite articles that, with the exception of a few original lines, are near exact copies of articles that ran in previous editions. But most importantly, the understanding that news publications – especially tabloids – have a profit motive explains the manufacturing of ‘fake news’ by these publications.
I use ‘fake news’ in an older sense. ‘Fake news’, before meaning ‘outright lies’, was used by Noam Chomsky to explain the attention given to stories that are published but do not constitute news. I apply this to the symbiotic relationship between minor celebrities and tabloids: again, what Heidi Klum wears to dinner is not really ‘news’.
The PR industry, like the news industry, is worth billions of dollars. Significant investment goes into the printing of tabloids as well as the manufacture of ‘celebrity’. PR firms are paid immense amounts not only to control the narrative of their clients, but to make sure there is a narrative at all. Thus, where tabloids need material to fill space, PR firms need stories of their clients.
Ultimately, some celebrity coverage can constitute news. Taylor Swift – who commands one of the largest fan bases in the industry – is newsworthy for her recent engagement and latest album. She still writes, and people do care who she dates. Paul McCartney’s new book about ‘Wings’ is relevant both because it is really new, and because Paul McCartney has transcended celebrity and become legendary. But Taylor Swift successfully avoided tabloid coverage for a couple of years before the Eras Tour, and no one is reporting what octogenarian Paul McCartney wears on his beach holidays.
Therein lies the point: what is a celebrity, or public figure? In the world of entertainment, this should be a creative – somebody whose art justifies their popularity. And yet there seems to be a divide between ‘artist’ and ‘celebrity’, where ‘artists’ are reported on for their art and ‘celebrities’ for their daily routines and social engagements. There is, of course, some overlap – but there is a clear line between promoting art and courting attention. And it’s worth noting how much attention we give to ‘news’ that doesn’t really matter.
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