tabloids. And from 1981 until 1994, Murdoch's vicar on British tabloid earth was the larger-than-life figure of Kelvin MacKenzie . As editor of The Sun he was the epitome of the red-top editor -- opinionated, vulgar, suburban, instinctive, vindictive but, sadly, in tune with the zeitgeist. Conservative to his bones, MacKenzie (and at one remove) Murdoch's Sun, was brash, confident and full of opinion. It defined the reading for a generation of the British working class and their outlook on life. They are strange creatures, the tabloid hackery. Too often they fit the film stereotype of the man in the trilby hat complete with a "press" label and long raincoat smoking a cigarette -- with a taste for loose women and even looser morals. Inside the red-top newsrooms their own cultural norms and ways of working develop. Just like a tribe. The atmosphere can be creative or destructive. There are hierarchies, pecking orders, the trusted, and the now favourites and anti-favourites. The tone is set by tradition - and the editor. Editors say their readers set the agenda But editors say it's the readers who set the agenda. Tina Weaver , editor of the Sunday Mirror (2001-2012), told the inquiry that the public are "the greatest barometer of what really is in the public interest... I think things which I would consider in the public interest, and I think readers would consider in the public interest, are often deemed to be private by judges." Before Wapping, when Murdoch broke out