That was one of the headlines from the Weekly World News; a tabloid launched 28 years ago by an ex-CIA agent who ran a newspaper publication. Never letting facts get in the way of a good story, the Weekly World News was famous for the outrageous and hilarious stories it would run every week. Unfortunately for fun loving and/or gullible people all over the US the Weekly World News is closing down due to low readership.
The tabloid reached its zenith in the 1980’s when up to 200 000 people would read it every week. The writers would often debate how many of them believed their crazy, non-truth based stories. It seems as though a good number did and the common perception amongst them seems to be that most of their readers actually believed them.
I am not really so sure how I should feel about it. On one hand I am sad that a once great, thoroughly unbelievable and very funny newspaper that was obviously so much fun to write for and read is going under. On the other hand it does open up some space for more serious journalism, and heaven knows, America needs that more then ever. Then again, we can’t have too much doom and gloom all the time. That would just be very boring.
Below is the beginning extract from a Washington Post article about the issue:
All the News That Seemed Unfit to Print
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; Page C01Somewhere in Kalamazoo, Elvis weeps: The Weekly World News is folding.
The Weekly World News was not one of those sleazy tabloids that cover tawdry celebrity scandals. It was a sleazy tabloid that covered events that seemed to occur in a parallel universe, a fevered dream world where pop culture mixed with urban legends, conspiracy theories and hallucinations. Maybe WWN played fast and loose with the facts, but somehow it captured the spirit of the age -- and did it in headlines as perfect as haiku:
"DEAD ROCK STARS RETURN ON GHOST PLANE!"
"BLIND MAN REGAINS SIGHT AND DUMPS UGLY WIFE!"
The most creative newspaper in American history, the Weekly World News broke the story that Elvis faked his death and was living in Kalamazoo, Mich. It also broke the story that the lost continent of Atlantis was found near Buffalo. And the story that Hillary Clinton was having a love affair with P'lod, an alien with a foot-long tongue. And countless other incredible scoops.
None of these stories was, in a strictly technical sense, true, which explains why the Weekly World News never won a Pulitzer Prize. But in its glorious heyday in the late 1980s, the supermarket tabloid amazed and amused a million readers a week.
