Tabloid Smear
Alicublog accuses me of turning anti-tabloidist, or at least tabloid rejectionist for mocking the National Enquirer’s Palin Affair splash. Wrong.
Never! I am a proud Tabloid-American and more accurately an anti-bullshitist, though in this case it was more a matter of schadenfreude over the National Enquirer’s misfortune to pop its steamy gotcha in the middle of an economic crisis, when voters are actually transfixed by a matter of legitimate, pressing concern to their own lives. The NE editors got the formula all wrong. The pols are supposed to pop the war/economic crisis to distract from the big sex scandal in the media, not the other way around.
Getting sexy with the Wall Street/bailout business apparently is going to take a little more editorial headscratching and source development than NE could manage in the last week. Anyway, maybe this Palin thing is true, like the Edwards one NE broke. But Jawa suggests NE’s sources are impeachable. NE’s done some great work, though it has has never touched the sadly now web-only Weekly World News in political coverage. Recent WWN headlines of note:
Palin hackers expose Bristol’s baby shower pics:
The photos show the gifts for the unborn baby and mother-to-be included the new Jonas Brothers album, lipstick, rifle ammunition and a special snowmobile-adapted baby seat.
Further examination reveals that each guest was given a gift bag of sunless tanner, voter registration cards and ‘Jesus is my Co-Pilot” bumper stickers.
McCain will sell Hawaii to raise cash.
The Alien picks Obama, McCain fuming. This is pretty dire news, as the Alien has a pretty good track record. (Ed Anger’s McCain endorsement here.)
And in foreign coverage:
Archaeological evidence confirms Carli Bruni is immortal:
Recent findings reveal that French First Lady Carla Bruni has been alive since at least the early Hellenic Period. Dr. Andrei Cyriakis has uncovered artifacts off the coast of Sicily dating back to 300 BC which bear an unmistakable resemblance to the model/singer.
Dr. Cyriakis’ find would help explain several events since Bruni began her courtship with French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
Last February a bus full of schoolchildren were saved from an avalanche near Lyon by what witnesses described as “a beautiful angel” wearing a designer Christian Dior dress similar to the one Bruni wore that evening to dinner with the Queen of Jordan.
Since her arrival in New York for the UN General Assembly, reports of street crime have dropped 83%. A woman matching Bruni’s description was seen flying away from an explosion at an abandoned warehouse in Queens shortly before her husband’s reception with the Eli Wiesel Humanitarian Foundation.
For reasons yet unknown Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was seen staring at Mrs. Bruni this morning at the United Nations building with clenched fists saying “Next time. Next time…”
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:39 am on Thursday, September 25, 2008
One Response to “Tabloid Smear”
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September 25th, 2008 at 11:47 am
l’ve always gotten a kick out of reading National Enquirer headlines while standing in the checkout line. But the fact that they went looking for Elvis’s alien baby and stumbled onto John Edwards’ illegitimate one (for once, an actual news story) doesn’t save them from being a disgraceful rag that some people actually take seriously (McCain’s “illegitimate black baby” anyone?).