What happens when a supermarket tabloid goes too far? When the ongoing war between the paper and the celebrities it covers becomes too personal? When fiction is sold as fact?

The answer is “Tabloid,” a penetrating inside look at an unscrupulous gossip sheet and the cold-hearted tragedy it caused.

Life is one big laugh for National Sun reporter Nick Gianelli. The money is the best in journalism. The travel glamorous. The hotels first class. It’s a fast lane and Nick thrives on it.

But not without paying a price. To live the high life at The Sun, one must discard the ethics, morals and integrity that are vital to the journalism profession.

Faced with this decision, Nick traded his ethics for a condo on the ocean. With the help of his co-horts, he eases the guilt by convincing himself that he is covering a make-believe world – Hollywood and its larger-than-life stars. Fanning the Tinsel Town fantasy fires does little harm, he reasons.

Nick’s tips to a new Sun recruit provide a vivid inside look at how the paper churns out its sordid product. He teaches his protege how to “blend fiction with a slender thread of fact and pass it off as the inside story.” He demonstrates how The Sun reporters cover themselves by using 11money” sources. How they.create sizzling romances between casual acquaintances, and how they con doctors and university professors into approving sensational quotes they never said.

These are the tricks of The Sun’s trade, and Nick is a master.

Only Nick digs in too deep. When a demand is made by the morally corrupt Sun owner to do a massive rip on a singer “The Boss” loathes, Nick is handed the unenviable task.

The assignment is a touchy one. Legendary singer Troy Hunter is photographed at a restaurant with a young starlet.

The photos raise eyebrows because Hunter’s wife had recently been hospitalized, and is still battling a consuming bout with depression. Her two children by a previous marriage were killed in an auto accident, and the loss shattered her. The Boss is hot for a sensational romance story detailing how Hunter painted the town red with a younger woman while his wife battled her illness. When Nick discovers the romance doesn’t exist, he demands The Sun kill the story. The Boss won’t hear of it. Using his own tricks, The Boss pressures Nick into caving in.

Backed against the wall, Nick writes the story. He uses the triedand-true Sun techniques to make it “stand up.”

Although he tries to downplay the story, the published version has been altered so much he is shocked.

Mrs. Hunter’s reaction goes beyond shock. The Sun’s story acts to verify her worst fears. She feels she has become a burden, an embarrassment to her husband. When she reads that her husband wants to marry the young woman and be rid of his “crazy wife,” it’s too much. She takes an overdose of powerful anti-depression pills. Mrs. Hunter is found in time to save her lifel but not her mind. The pills have left her in a coma and severely damaged her brain.

Hunter flies into a rage. Calling a massive press conference, he denounces The Sun in-a tearful, emotion-packed speech that gains wide play across the nation.

Suddenly, the heat has boomeranged on The Sun. The Boss and his high-priced attorneys follow their standard procedure — find a scapegoat. In this case — Nick. He is fired from The Sun and disappears.

Two years pass. The case finally is brought to trial. Hunter has filed an enormous lawsuit against The Sun, seeking damages of $100 million for the harm done to his wife.

But the trial doesn’t go Hunter’s way. Time has lessened the impact of his wife’s attempted suicide. Hiding behind the First Amendment, The Sun’s attorneys win point after point, virtually locking up a favorable decision.

Then dramatically, in the midst of the trial, the long-sought Nick Gianelli resurfaces. He refutes all of The Sun’s phony testimony and manages to back up his statements with solid evidence.

In “Tabloid’s” climactic scene, Nick goes up against The Sun’s famed attorney and uses his well-rehearsed techniques to sucker the attorney into allowing one piece of damning evidence after another to come out. Finally, the rattled attorney falls prey to the biggest trap of all and blows the case wide open.

Armed with the sensational new evidence, the jury returns with a “guilty” verdict against The Sun. In an unprecedented decision, it awards Hunter the entire $100 million.

In a chilling epilogue, Nick’s barroom banter theories about The Sun’s true purpose comes to light. The Sun’s real owners and operators are unveiled, and they make The Boss pay for ruining their long-established operation. Despite this, in the closing scene, we see that the scandal business will go on as usual.