Archive for the ‘National-Enquirer’ Category

Batboy, Goodbye: Weekly World News R.I.P.

July 26, 2007

Sad to hear the Weekly World News is gone (or gone to the Web, far from the supermarket racks but at home with the other rumor-mongers)  I had just bought a copy for my 8-year old.  We had chuckles over the cover story about how “President Kennedy is alive and fighting for the U.S. Navy in Iraq”–that’s one you’d really like to believe was true. 

The technical term for stories like that are “too good to check.” 

Of course, the Weekly World News, which bills billed itself as the “world’s most reliable newspaper”,  never checked anything.  When I had my orientation at the National Enquirer in lovely Lantana, Florida, back in the 1980’s, I asked where the reporters for their ’sister’ publication, the WWN, were. 

A bloated reporter jerked his thumb towards a distant room: “They make it up over there.”

New Discovery Proves —CAVEMEN INVENTED ROCK MUSIC!

Posted in National-Enquirer, Weekly-World-News, tabloid-journalism, too-good-to-check | No Comments »

Quote Whores and Trained Seals

June 14, 2007

Every journalist needs sources for his stories.  The three-source story is the model, although abandoned in this LA Times piece on Tom Cruise.

Let’s say you were doing a business story on the new Apple iPhone.  (A flood of these are coming.)  You’d interview someone from Apple (”the vendor”),  an industry analyst for third-party commentary, and an end user, a partner like AT&T or a competitor.  Story’s done, on to the next.

Because reporters can’t interview themselves, they cultivate sources they can get to say the stuff they want, or at least interesting stuff.   They usually have to have some standing as an ‘expert’, such as a professorship or authorship of a book. Some of these ‘quote whores’ are quite promiscuous in who they talk to, and often they’re promoting a book, their brokerage if they’re a stock analyst, etc.

Prof. Robert Thompson of Syracuse University is considered the king of media quotes: from 2000-2002, he was quoted 972 times in articles about popular culture.  One poster calls it “‘dropping the Thompson bomb’- something you did when you needed someone else to say the things you were thinking. “

At the Enquirer, we had a group we’d call “trained seals.”  Any kind of quote you wanted, they would give you; the standard ‘honorarium’ was $250 per story.  The best were psychologists, usually a clinical assistant professor or higher or a book author. They’d earn their fee spending an hour with you on the phone, as you pushed them to explain “how your favorite color reveals your personality.”

Posted in Apple-Computer, Journalism, Los-Angeles-Times, National-Enquirer, Robert-Thompson, tom-cruise | No Comments »

Paris Hilton: Media Can’t Get Enough

June 12, 2007

Early in my journalistic career, I spent five years writing for the National Enquirer.  People asked how I could live with myself, instead of writing for a ‘real’ newspaper.  I tried to tell them that standards of verification at the Enquirer were just as high as the New York Times.  Indeed, it was not the Enquirer, but the NY Times, that named the alleged victim in the 1991 Patrick Kennedy Smith rape case.

So I like to say that the rest of the media has jumped right down into the gutter with the Enquirer.   It started with Presidential candidate Gary Hart being ‘outed’ for his extra-marital affair, picked up steam with the orgiastic OJ Simpson coverage, and snowballed to the bottom of the hill with the airtime and precious ink devoted to Paris.

Some outlets pretend their Paris coverage is about ‘issues’, such as this LA Times Paris Hilton story (one of three they run each day) how rich and poor are treated in jail, but most just go for the breathless pandering.

The NY Times had a front-page story on Paris.  And yes, it was an ‘issue’ piece about  ‘celebrity justice’–a figleaf for their naked ambition covering the woman they so primly call Ms. Hilton.

Photo of Donna Rice sitting on the knees of Gary Hart on the luxury yacht Monkey Business, the climactic image that ended Hart's first 1988 presidential campaign.

Donna Rice and Gary Hart on the yacht Monkey Business. 

Posted in Donna-Rice, Gary-Hart, Journalism, National-Enquirer, New-York-Times, O.J.-Simpson, Paris-Hilton | No Comments »