Don’t worry: the ‘tabloid revolution’ is not going to carry everything before it

It is becoming a commonplace that the ‘tabloid wars’ between broadsheet titles are transforming the newspaper market. There is a widespread belief that in producing tabloid editions the Independent and, to a lesser extent, the Times have stolen a brilliant march on their rivals. The Guardian is accused of having fallen asleep on the job, and one excitable commentator has suggested that the paper is doomed. The Daily Telegraph is also thought by many to be fatally missing out on the revolution. As soon as it finds a new buyer, it is suggested, it must unveil the tabloid edition with whose prototype frustrated executives have been tinkering.

Such is the general view in what used to be called Fleet Street. In large measure it is what I thought myself until a few weeks ago. But there are reasons for believing that the existing quality tabloids may not be everything they are cracked up to be.