The Sun is considered a tabloid, not MSM. That said, I don't believe anything in that "article" other than the fact that LS lost her teaching license due to not showing up for work.
This posting which follows may veer off-topic. But as it is a reply to a posting about a particular publication the poster has challenged to not be considered "mainstream media (MSM)," a tag about which we seem constantly to be debating in these Websleuths forums, I thought some elaboration about the terms "tabloid" and "MSM" to be in order and also possibly instructive for those without a newspaper journalism background, which I happen to have.
Actually, and technically, "NervousNellie,"
vis-à-vis your assertion about
The Sun newspaper and use of the term "tabloid," a tabloid may be just as much "mainstream media (MSM)" as a
broadsheet. For some examples,
The Boston Herald and
The New York Daily News are both tabloids, but also considered just as much "MSM" as each's broadsheet competitor, namely,
The Boston Globe and
The New York Times.
The term "tabloid" has become widely misconstrued to imply a largely non-fact-based, gossip-mongering, sensationalist scandal sheet, when, in professional newspaper parlance, the term is actually only to describe a size and physical format of a newspaper,
not an editorial and/or reporting style.
Tabloid newspapers, which are designed with smaller sheets, are more horizontally-focused (like a periodical), but are not pre-folded, attained greater popularity among the working class due to their greater ease of handling and reading on public transit (buses and subways) than
broadsheets, which have longer, vertical sheets,
are pre-folded, and which remain more popular by subscription circulation (home delivery and institutional), compared to tabloid dominance via hawkers (persons physically selling papers), newsstand and newspaper vending machine distribution, a/k/a "on-street sales."
Although,
USA Today was founded partly on the premise it could attain a large circulation and readership via on-street sales even with its broadsheet design, a kind of generic "national newspaper" and also the first daily newspaper to widely utilize color graphics and photographs, years ahead of many city-based dailies.
The Sun (published in London, England and in the Republic of Ireland) actually began as a broadsheet in 1964, then switched to tabloid publishing in 1969, at which point it was sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (which had also owned the now-defunct, very sensationalist Sunday-published tabloid
News of the World). But
The Sun is an actual newspaper and registered as such, so would be considered a "MSM" newspaper just as much as
The Times (orig. broadsheet, now compact, which is a hybrid of broadsheet and tabloid) and
The Sunday Times (broadsheet), also now owned by Murdoch's publishing group since 1981. Murdoch also owns
The New York Post (tabloid perceived to have a politically conservative, working-class readership), but had also at one time owned
The Village Voice (also a tabloid, and a leftist stalwart since its inception in 1955); in fact purchased the
Voice in 1977 for $7+ million and sold it in 1985 for $55 million to help finance the FOX broadcasting network. Murdoch's only ideology when it comes to his media holdings is the financial bottom line.
Now, all that said, I seem to recall somewhere in my professional journalism career and education there were commissioned studies to ascertain the differentials among the readers of tabloids versus broadsheets, such that tabloid papers (such as
The NY Post) are written for a fourth grade reading comprehension level while broadsheets (such as
The NY Times) are written for a sixth grade reading level, etc. But there has always been a debate about that issue, which, of course, could be affected by which entity/entities commissioned the comprehension level studies and so forth. Also, many newspapers are often defined as being identified with a particular political ideology-- i.e., "a liberal (Democrat, Labour) newspaper" "conservative (Republican, Tory) newspaper" or "middle-of-the-road paper." Assume, then, what you will about the differences between the editorial styles of newspapers.
And since the Internet achieved popularity in the 1990s, increasingly newspaper (and periodicals) traditions are disappearing anyway, with many more persons obtaining their information online, so no broadsheet or tabloid differential there, except perhaps a virtual one when we see a thumbnail image of the hard copy on the title's website and on Wikipedia.
Also, who is to say a sensationalist information source (such as
The National Enquirer or
The Star) is not also sometimes just as valid an info. source as one perceived as more traditionally "respectable," such as
USA Today, The New York Times or
The Chicago Tribune? For example, in 2007 the
Enquirer broke the story about then-married Democrat vice presidential nominee, former Senator John Edwards' affair with film producer Rielle Hunter, the reportage of which nearly earned the
Enquirer a Pulitzer Prize, a situation most galling to so-called "MSM."
In fact, also increasingly, "MSM" is becoming
more sensationalist, certainly in terms of the major broadcast television networks (ABC, CBS and NBC, FOX began as such). Both ABC's
20/20 and NBC's
Dateline TV magazine programs have been accused of practicing "checkbook journalism" (paying for its sources), considered unethical among professional journalists. But then, at one time, who would ever have thought we'd see the day when attorneys at law would be permitted to advertise on TV either? And the way the trends appears headed, we might assume physicians and surgeons will be the next professions to hawk their services on TV, perhaps offering cut-rate appendectomies and mastectomies with coupons. We would
then know we have reached the dead end of professional ethical integrity.
