ABSTRACT
Sex, lies, and the invasion of the privacy of individuals have certainly been an important part of the staple diet of popular British newspapers since popular British newspapers have existed. This chapter looks at respects in which new factors have been at work in today's popular journalism. The first obvious change in recent years is the extent to which all newspapers, but particularly the popular tabloids, have dropped the 'public service' aspect of their publishing and are now run as conventional businesses whose primary aim is to maximize revenue and minimize cost. Most significant of all the changes in the last two decades has been a legacy of Mrs Thatcher's long period of government. The return to neo-classical economics and the rejection of concepts of social cohesion and public responsibility embodied by that Thatcherism helped to reinforce the view that newspapers are just a business like any other.
