TABLOIDS

I Bought a National Enquirer

Woman Gives Birth to Frog

I admit it.

It was the first time in years that I had purchased the supermarket tabloid. Not that I am a snob. I actually wrote for the New York Post before it became Foxified.

I was late picking up my Sunday papers. The news stand’s operator kindly held my copy of the Financial Times Weekend until Monday. I like catching news from a foreign (for American me) perspective. As I was a day late in retrieving my papers, I decided to show my appreciation by buying something else beyond my usual FT and New York Times.

The cover of the December 4, 2023 edition of the National Enquirer features, “TRAGIC BRITNEY GOING BROKE” and “DOCTOR’S BOMBSHELL! DAZED BIDEN SUFFERING SECRET MINI-STROKES! BRAIN DAMAGE NIGHTMARE!”

I was intrigued to read this as I know Britney Spear’s memoir is on the top of the Best Seller lists and her songs continue to garner airplay.

And I think the 81-year-old Biden is doing as decent a job in the highest office as anyone could during these disastrous times.

I recall the Donald Trump/Enquirer brouhaha during the 2016 presidential campaign, in which a former Trump bedmate was paid the amount of $150,000 by the National Enquirer for her story, only to have her tell-all suppressed at the behest of the publisher, a man with the unlikely name of David Pecker.

The tabloid’s in-house coverage of any negative Trump news was called “Catch and Kill”. Pecker allegedly also helped arrange the $130,000 hush money payment to adult actress Stormy Daniels.

After decades of scandal, including past links to the Mafia and the notorious lawyer and Trump mentor Roy Cohn, the National Enquirer was sold to new owners in 2023.

My money would not be going to Pecker.

I thought I’d be paying around $3.00, the same amount as for my large, fascinating, well-written, and slick-magazine-containing, FT newspaper. But the iddy-biddy Enquirer cost twice that amount

He had already rung it up and the fellow behind the news counter had been far too diligent to deserve my pulling the tabloid from the sale over an unexpected three-dollar charge.

I next lugged my papers into a coffee shop, where I spent (wasted) another $6.00 on a latte.

I opened the tabloid.

Let’s see. Has Nicole Kidman become so skinny that she is prime for osteoporosis? Does Elle Macpherson specialize in hissy fits? Is Robert DeNiro, like Biden, going senile? Is Keke Palmer the victim of her boyfriend’s abuse? Is Adele a drunk? Are hot tubs to be blamed for the death of Matthew Perry?

Hot stuff. But the stories are all rather vague, the sources mostly anonymous, other than in Palmer’s case.

Highlighted in red, the Britney Spears story blasts, “Britney Blowing Through $60M!” The story quotes unnamed sources who say, “Britney was warned a few months ago that she was running into the red, but she didn’t change anything and kept on blowing her cash and now it’s happened. She’s got a mountain of debts and no money coming in.”

I have no idea if this is true, although I suspect that the only thing in the red is the article’s title.

As for Biden’s incapacities, once again, there are unnamed sources, especially a “Beltway Insider”. A well-known physician the story quotes, Dr. Gabe Mirkin, close to ninety himself, speaks generally about Biden’s medical history, saying he has sustained brain damage, but there is no indication he has ever treated, or even met, the president.

(Dr. Mirkin is also the medical commentator on Nicole Kidman’s lack of bulk, saying, “She is in grave danger of osteoporosis, which results in brittle bones that can shatter from the slightest contact.”)

The Enquirer notes at the end of the article about Joe Biden, that Biden’s personal physician says he is “fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”

I also read stories about various actors’ bad plastic surgery and worse box office results. I catch columns of romances and break-ups. And a happy piece pertaining to Jeremy Renner’s “mirculous recovery” from a horrible snow plow accident last January.

Okay. I enjoyed the fluffy read, inaccuracies and exaggerations included.

Tabloid Tales

I will admit I was mesmerized by my first experience with the National Enquirer, long before it became the celebrity rag. Long before eerie cover stories depicting dead Elvis and dead Whitney sold millions of copies.

I have a distinct memory.

I was a child of around ten or eleven waiting for a bus at the entrance to a small 7-Eleven type convenience store.

There it was.

On the counter lurked a black and white newsprint publication, a murky photograph on the cover below the splashed words: “Woman Gives Birth to Frog.”

I had to have it.

I remember reading that the poor woman’s poor baby was born with a three-chambered heart rather than a normal human four-chambered heart. As frog hearts have three chambers, therefore the baby was a frog. That is according to the National Enquirer. The infant died shortly after birth.

I would say the Enquirer sometimes gets its crime stories right. This December 4th issue has a photo-filled two-page spread depicting a sickening murder allegedly committed by the son of a top Hollywood producer.

The father, Samuel Haskell III, was George Clooney, Ray Romano, and Whoopi Goldberg’s William Morris agent, and more recently, the producer of Dolly Parton’s TV specials and Miss America pageants. His son, Samuel Haskell IV, has been arrested and charged with the murder of his wife and his in-laws.

He hired day laborers to haul away body parts in garbage bags, claiming there were rocks inside the bags.

The alleged murderer’s parents were the only American couple invited to the Royal Wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh (Prince Edward and Sophie).

The Enquirer was also a top source for information during the O.J. Simpson investigations and trials.

And some thought the supermarket tabloid deserved a Pulitzer in 2008 for uncovering presidential hopeful and North Carolina Senator John Edwards’ extramarital affair and the much denied daughter born from that relationship.

The National Enquirer also broke true news about Rush Limbaugh’s drug addiction and Jesse Jackson’s out of wedlock child.

And it ended the aspirations of a prior presidential front-runner, Colorado Senator Gary Hart, uncovering his affair with Miami model Donna Rice.

If only the National Enquirer had covered Trump accurately in 2016 instead of enabling him.

If only….