Populism and Pathology in the British Tabloids

In a new article, Simon Cross representations of crime and responsibility in British tabloids.

He notes that the tabloid press is the section of the British media that has mobilized most vehemently on crime and responsibility. The logic of the tabloids is to sensationalize crime whilst insisting that criminals are morally responsible for their actions. However, this logic is thwarted when offenders are insane. The solution for British tabloids has been to invoke the illogical notion that mentally disordered offenders are mad and bad. The article argues for the need to understand this tabloid heuristic in relation to the politics of mental health care in the community policy in the 1990s, and the politics of tabloid populism. Tabloid reporting on the ‘mad and bad’ is further illustrated in the case of offenders housed in England’s top-security Broadmoor Hospital. By identifying hypocrisy in tabloid reporting on Broadmoor patients, the article concludes that British tabloid logic should be viewed as pathological. 

Cross, S. (forthcoming) ‘Mad and Bad Media: Populism and Pathology in the British Tabloids’. To appear in European Journal of Communication. 

Mad and Bad Media

Simon Cross recently gave a conference paper on press representations of the 'mad and bad' at a Conference on Language, Culture and Politics in Krakow.

--> Simon argued that, in the wake of the UK’s Leveson Inquiry into the ethics and practices of the popular press, journalism educators must reconsider whether ‘poor’ journalism practice can remedied. A case in point concerns media reporting on mentally disordered offenders, which is pock-marked with infected consequences of ‘mad and bad’ clap-trap dished out by pathological tabloids. The idea that tabloid reporting on the mad and bad is a condition of ‘poor’ journalism not only misdiagnoses the problem but also reckons it has remedy to improve the condition: educating editors in the error of their ways. Drawing on original research his paper shows that instead of educating tabloid editors and journalists we need a radical response to eradicating tabloid pathology. His ideas aimed to counter a tendency in journalism studies reluctant to criticize tabloid populism on mental disorder. By doing so it moves beyond a heuristic dictated by tabloid logic on mad and bad and speaks to our need to develop a political sensitivity in journalism education beyond the status quo. 

SImon Cross, 'Mad and Bad Media: the Pathology of British Tabloids', 5th Annual International Conference on Language, Culture and Politics, Tischner European University, Krakow., 6-7 June 2013.