"A fabulous, detailed and hugely entertaining account of tabloid journalism, starting from the first cave paintings to the more recent abuses of privacy by some of our most popular newspapers. Kirby reveals how a tabloid sensibility has always been a part of our media landscape and is likely to continue well into the digital age. The book confronts the moguls, editors, headlines, and scandals that have dominated tabloid life in the search for influence, notoriety, and profits. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the role of tabloids in British society."

Des Freedman, professor of media and communications, Goldsmiths, University of London

"Tabloids were founded to inform and entertain, and this history manages to do both. Descriptive and largely uncritical, Kirby does something very few of the editors whose work he analyses would ever allow. He lets the facts speak for themselves."

Roy Greenslade, former editor, media commentator, and professor of journalism

"Like its subject, this book is not only accessible and entertaining, but a detailed, critical and authoritative history of a vital and controversial part of our culture and politics. At the very moment when newspapers are most challenged, The Newsmongers reminds us that journalism is always changing and that the popular press is often the most innovative."

Charlie Beckett, founding director of Polis and professor in the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics

"A first-class book from a first-class journalist. Kirby tells a highly readable story that whisks us from the age of deference by way of scandal, sleaze and sensation to the era of clickbait, the Kardashians and rampant criminality. The Newsmongers presents a more than timely insight into the most powerful political force in the United Kingdom today: the tabloid press."

Brian Cathcart, former professor of journalism at Kingston University and a former director of Hacked Off