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Comment by bb101 | Hacker News Reader

I suppose it might serve as a useful warning for readers from other countries, especially if their country doesn't have tabloids of their own. I would say most people in the UK know to take news from certain publications with a grain of salt, but it can be far from obvious for others.

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* I would say most people in the UK know to take news from certain publications with a grain of salt*

Not in my experience, there are people in my own family who lap it up.

There are no countries where there are media, but no "tabloids" (also the term can be different). The UK is not that unique as you seem to believe.

UK is somewhat unique. As a football fan, I know way more than I'd like to about extramarital activities of the English Premiere League players. I don't read the Sun, but this knowledge permeates /r/soccer etc. It's probably related to the fact, that almost all the commenters who have a judgement about the family life of the sportsmen they've never met are British or American.

All countries have vulgar media, but generally they print personal stories only after there have been charges pressed, or someone got sued.

The distinction you are talking about is sports being included into pop culture. My remark was about media landscape. The thing Brits call "tabloid" (not referring to paper size) exists everywhere, it's just that football players may be deemed less worthy of gossips in other places.

I beg to differ. An example is Australia. Plenty of national and regional broadsheets, but no purposefully trashy tabloids that I can think of.

But do you know about Bat boy?

Herald Sun? It's owned by Murdoch too.

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