Muckraker

Winner of the Political Book Awards 2013 Best Political Biography. The era of sensational tabloid journalism began in Britain in the summer of 1885 when W. T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, ran a newspaper campaign entitled 'The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon'. In a series of flesh-creeping articles, the editor revealed how he had 'purchased' a child of thirteen from her parents for sinister purposes darkly hinted at to the reader.