How much to exaggerate a story?

I wanted to do some research on how much a story can be exaggerated in order to sell more newspapers. I know for a fact that a tabloids write about a lot of celebrities, they are more likely, and have more reason to exaggerate the real situations. But what does a broadsheet have to gain from exaggerating a local story?

I already know that whatever we read in the media, isn't fully true, it never has been. This is because it is more interesting to read, sells more papers and creates more of a stir around a certain story in order to sell even more newspapers.

Tabloid newspapers usually exaggerate a story because they hook in the kind of audiences that would like to read about something shocking. When writing about celebs, people that the public aspire to be like or like to read about stories are very often made much more dramatic than they actually are to cause stir round that certain celeb so more articles can be written about them. As readers, we do know that headlines and stories aren't always what they seem. I often ask myself: "how would they get that kind of information" when i see some private info about a celeb written in the paper. But after the phone-hacking scandal, my question seemed a little bit answered.

To put it bluntly, we are as some may say, lied to on a daily basis. However, in conversation with friends we may exaggerate a story to make it sound more exiting or dramatic than it actually is. It is something which we do ourselves but might not necessarily admit because it is looked down on - which is something i am going to do while researching how much newspapers exaggerate a story.

As i have researched, there aren't any really big laws or regulations that newspapers have to follow, so they can do pretty much what they like with a story, without being libel or writing slander - which i have seen slightly in newspapers nowadays.

I have found a few case studies to look at which could get me to the conclusion of how effective it is for newspapers to over exaggerate a story. I found these particular studies which searching online and then found a list from 2009 by the Telegraph newspaper of the top celebrity stories of that year. This is a very good page because it states a lot of different forms of controversy through one story. I have kept in mind that the Telegraph is a newspaper and they may have exaggerated:

Here is the page: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/6841016/Top-10-celebrity-stories-of-2009.html

Here are a few stories which caught my eye and that i definitely have an opinion on:

Micheal Jackson

He died in 2009 after an overdose which wasn't known at the time to be suicide, murder or man-slaughter. Throughout Jackson's life there have been some pretty bizarre stories written about him such as; who fathered his children, his plastic surgery and his own intentions. Because these are such strange stories, do people actually believe them? If they are so weird, we know they cont realistically be true, but because these are celebs we almost think that these crazy things could happen and we MUST read about it.

After Jackson died the crazy allegations of his life were still going about, and how he died is still in the papers today due to an on going investigation into how he was killed. Jackson was a mega-star and some peo0ple refused to even believe he was dead - showing that not everybody believes the papers, and prefer to believe something even more ridiculous! As Jackson was a mega-star it was a big deal, therefore a lot of people want to read ANY kind of story about him, selling newspapers very fast!

My opinion about this whole story is that everything in Micheal Jackson's life was blown wayy out of proportion, every story was ridiculous. I put this down to the idea that people believe that in the celebrity world, anything is possible.

Kanye West at the VMAs

I have to admit, i thought this was one of the best stories i heard about in 2009. It gave us as an audience an insight into the real Kanye West - a very rude and inconsiderate person - let alone an egomaniac.

At the VMAs, Kanye West took it to himself to jump on stage while Taylor Swift was receiving her first award for Best Female Video to say that Beyonce should have won this award. This was all happening while Taylor Swift was still standing on stage trying to present her thank-you speech. I didn't know until now reading that rumours of Kanye's death was going around in the papers - the papers clearly had no proof or evidence to support this showing that they can literally write anything untrue as somebody dying.

My opinion is that he made himself look very silly, and the newspapers used this to their own advantage, selling newspapers by the shed-load because of this story of a very well-known performer.

Certain stories can definitely get out of control, whether that is the story itself, the hype around it, conflicting views and because it isn't on the legal side to publish it. A story which didn't go down well with the law or the subject can put harm, not only the subject the article is about, but also the newspaper itself - shooting themselves in the foot.


Many celebrities have sued newspapers due to the content they have published about them - whether true or not. the celebs could blame the newspaper for harming their work and public image. However, the newspapers always seem to come out on top, they can publish stories about the celeb suing. Newspapers never learn from it and carry on to do what they did before, because being sued doesn't harm their income too much if a national newspaper.My Newspaper


I am not planning to take too much time on my newspaper stories because my task isn't to write the best article, it is to create a newspaper that somebody would like to read. I have seen that headlines are normally the most exaggerated part of an article because it hooks the reader and makes hem want to read the article.