In the UK most people would associate the term with the most popular of the daily
tabloids, and their very famous, very distasteful headline during the
Falklands War.
After
the sinking of the Belgrano,
The Sun's front cover carried a huge, single word
headline, reading '
GOTCHA'.
For The Sun, it was a glorious moment of
war, appealing to the
jingoism they had been feeding for weeks (with endless stories about
Our Brave Boys and the
Dirty Argies. The rest of the country, however, was less tempted to dance with glee over the drowning of hundreds. Especially as the Belgrano was heading away from the
exclusion zone.
Referring to the
Gotcha moment in British journalism conjours up other crass, self-congratulatory moments where tablouds get their jollies from sticking two fingers up at their figures of hate (the
EC,
Brussels,
perverts, the
Labour Party, anyone who is rude to
The Queen Mum, etc). The recent
name and shame call to arms from
The News of the World is a case in point.