WEBVTT - Selects: How Tabloids Work 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:04.040 Hello, everybody. Have you ever been followed around by a 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:06.680 person to the camera taking pictures of you and your 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.440 family and your children, and then publishing them in a 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.920 newspaper or a weekly rag. Well, that happens to people, 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.279 doesn't happen to me, Probably doesn't happen to you. But 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.720 we're the lucky ones. But if you're celebrity, and I 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.000 know you kind of sign up for this. It's not 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.200 great to be followed around by tabloid photographers and be 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.960 splashed across those tabloid magazines. And this is all about 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:39.159 tabloid's from how tabloid's work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:47.960 a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:52.440 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant uh, 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.000 and this is Stuff you should Know. It's a podcast. 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:59.960 It's audio only, um, but coming soon it will also 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:04.720 include smells. Oh yeah, smell a vision, not vision, smellow 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:10.039 sound smell. It will just called it Smellow rama be 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:14.120 and grumpy people today. I'm not grumpy. You're grumpy. I'm grumpy. Jerry. 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:17.160 Jerry's grumpy. I'm fine. Y'all were grumping at each other 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.039 when I came in here. No, Jerry was mad at 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.640 me for being mad at her, which doesn't count. It's 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.560 just everyone's grumpy. It's such a grumpy day. I'm not grumpy. 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:33.160 It's just head legitimate. Everyone's scripy. So chuck. Yes, I 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.360 want to tell you about a great American hero, William 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:43.560 kat No okay uh. Many years ago, in the wilds 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:49.040 of I wish I could remember where he was found Mississippi, 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:55.960 a little guy known as bat Boy was captured. He 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.760 was caught on a rooftop during a flood in Mississippi, 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.240 and the authorities seized him and UM took him into 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.600 their care. He became a ward of the state. That 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:06.800 makes sense because bat boys are known to go to 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:11.720 higher ground during flooding. Yeah, and he did, true to form. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.320 Uh so uh. Bat Boy at first he didn't like 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.920 this captivity UM, but eventually he kind of became something 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:25.359 of a patriot by UM volunteering to go search for 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:30.440 Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda operatives UM in 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.200 the caves of Afghanistan. The reason bat Boy was so 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.400 good at it is because he was raising caves half 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.639 bat half boy names UM. He wasn't able to find 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.720 Bin laden, but he still returned to the U S 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.240 a hero after a long, long flight because he just 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:52.360 flew himself. Of course. And we know of bat boys 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:57.400 exploits thanks to a little newspaper known as The Weekly 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.640 World News. Have you heard of this? Two things? I 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.600 used to subscribe to The Weekly World. Yeah, for like 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:06.320 a year in high school, me and my buddy rad 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:12.600 did because it was fun Radcliffe, Radford. And two. I 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:17.240 didn't realize that bat Boy they continued his exploits. I 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.440 think bat Boy sold a lot of papers for well, 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:20.920 I knew he did, but I didn't know. I didn't 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:22.720 know they kept it up. That's awesome. I'm glad to 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.359 know that he was fighting the terrorists. Yes he did, 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.200 he tried to. I don't know if he was successful. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.799 At least he went equipped more than with just a sword. Um. 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.280 But yeah, so bat Boy was a prominent character, I guess. 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.880 And The Week, which also bills itself as the world's 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:49.400 only reliable newspaper. Yeah, that little tagline or whatever. That's great. Yeah, 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.080 it's not around anymore in print. Yeah, I think I 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:55.320 remember a bit shutting down and being sort of sad 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.520 it's online, I guess. Yeah. In two thousand and eight, 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.560 it moved too and moved online. Yeah, so really every 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:06.200 aspect of that story from this outrageous UM claim that 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.000 the bat Boy was captured and sent to Afghanistan, to 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:14.040 UM calling itself tongue in cheek, the World's most reliable, 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.240 the world's only reliable newspaper to it's shutting down and 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.960 going online because of massive profit losses after being purchased 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.520 by this huge conglomerate of tabloid papers. The Weekly World 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:30.479 News is a perfect analogy for the course of tabloids 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.760 over the last like twenty years as a whole. Yeah, 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.960 and we're gonna dig into that. Um. I think it's funny. 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:38.880 I never because I didn't know the little tagline, but 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.599 I guess they figured if we're just going to be 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:43.880 making up stories, because the Weekly World News, for those 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:46.440 of you who haven't read it, isn't just a tabloid, 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.599 I mean, it's like it's it's fan fiction. I mean, 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.720 it's completely ridiculous. They don't pretend. But that's why it's 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.080 funny that they said that the only reliable thing. They said, well, 0:04:58.120 --> 0:04:59.719 we might as well just say that in the thing, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.880 get it. Yes, And one of their apparently one of 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.320 their editors is quoted as saying, I could only find 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:07.240 one source for this quote, so I don't know how 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:09.679 true it is. It could be made up, which would 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.240 be kind of like this apropos meta parody of the 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:17.440 whole thing. But um, he said, if our if our 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:22.000 readers are informed, it's usually by accident. Really, so they 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.960 were well aware. That's great and it is an extreme example. 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:27.599 But there are there are some aspects of the weekly 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:29.599 World News that do fit the bill of the of 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.120 a standard tabure. Um. So I mean, let's talk about it. 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.400 What is a tabloid? Well, Um, should we start at 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.120 the beginning or should we just talk about a little 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:39.640 bit then do the history? Do you want to do 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.160 the history first? Man, Yeah, let's do the history first, 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:47.039 because positive that we don't practice. So I did see, Um, 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.280 there was one slight error. This is an ed Grabanowski article, 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.080 which are always great. But did you see this other 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:57.560 etymology for the word tabloid with the pill company No um. 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.440 In the late eighteen hundreds, apparently, um Burrows, Welcome and 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:06.920 Company was a pharmaceutical company in England. They produced at 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.840 the time like medicines were all like BC powder and 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.039 good he's powdered. They all powdered, and he I think 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.000 was the first one to make into to a pill 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.160 by compressing the powder, and he called it a tabloid 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:24.520 of cocaine. Yeah, it probably was. And um that that 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.640 word became to mean anything figuratively, that was a small 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:33.080 dose of anything. So the word tabloid actually became came 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:39.240 before I believe about ten years before the shrunken newspaper, uh, 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.120 the physical newspaper shrinking. Well, it still works. It's like 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:46.560 the origin of life on Earth comes from another planet, 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.440 but really, where did the origin of life begin? Right? 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:51.839 It doesn't answer the question. It's the same thing like, okay, 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.680 so maybe that's the origin of the word tabloid. Then 0:06:55.800 --> 0:07:01.360 it was associated with newspapers that the tabloid paper um 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:05.560 is printed on a smaller, more compact version of the 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:10.560 normal newspaper newsprint called a broadsheet. Right, so the tabloid 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.000 is a smaller, more compact version the broadsheet is longer 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:18.200 and wider um and then the tabloid were usually printed 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.600 on the smaller paper, hence the word. Yeah. So at 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.480 first it was a pill, then it became the size 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.240 of the paper, and then later on it just became 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:33.360 um the style of the paper and size, but really 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.680 the style. But tabloids, as were explaining them, are basically 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:41.120 like um. They are also commonly referred to as rags 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:47.560 as UM gutter public. Yeah, they're gossip sheets, whatever it's 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:52.520 it's basically it's a it's a uh, slightly shifty, underhanded 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:57.640 newspaper and um tabloids. One of the ways that they 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.840 exist and always have existed is in compare us into 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:06.360 a quote, legitimate newspapers. So like originally newspapers that say, 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:11.680 like the beginning the early nineteenth century, they were extremely stuffy, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.680 they were extremely expensive. They were like six cents per 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.440 which was like half a day's pay for the average labor. 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.600 Really dry. Man. If you ever read these old New 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.960 York Times articles, there's like they just really just you know, 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.240 they lay out the facts and then say the end 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.480 exactly like the AP used to do until a few 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.079 years ago. The AP always did that. It was sort 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:38.160 of straight who, what, when, how, where and why the 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:42.840 old journalistic pyramid exactly and then like maybe a quote 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.880 in there and that was it. UM. And so out 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.120 of this I guess kind of boredom and a need 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.760 for the working class to be able to, you know, 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.480 get their news too, because I couldn't afford it came. 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.720 The predecessors were tabloids called the penny press, so they 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:02.120 were cheaper, and they also did something different. They took 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:07.760 stories from just these boring facts, political stories, business stories, 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.319 that kind of thing, and started working on human interest stories. 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:15.160 And they changed the style of writing sentences for shorter paragraphs, 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:19.559 for shorter way more emotion. It was. It was designed 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.880 for that, like listen to the triumph of this family 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.840 over their evil landlord or whatever kind of what we 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:30.040 see now in mainstream newspapers. Exactly. Yes, a lot, a 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:34.320 lot of our mainstream UM media owes quite a bit 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.160 to the evolution of tabloids. And there's actually a point 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:39.600 where it kind of spread. Finally it made a jump. 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.400 But you can see throughout the history of tabloids and 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:46.280 newspapers this interplay where tabloids almost kind of break ground, 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:48.960 take a bunch of heat and flak for it, and 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.440 then newspapers like latch onto what they're doing. After after 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.680 it becomes co opted in normal behind the guys of 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.920 you know, we're the upstanding publication exactly just the sky 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:05.400 right I'm discussed by it all. Um. Yellow journalism came 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.880 about in the era of William Randolph Hurst with his 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.240 New York Journal later called The New York Journal American, 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.760 and he was the first person in the United States, 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:17.960 at least, because I think in England it even started 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.320 out before us. But I'm not mistaken. In England, I 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.240 think they were kind of like the birth of some 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:28.319 of the more tabloid style writing. But in America William 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.720 Randolph Hurst did with all of a sudden he started 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:36.040 doing some celebrity stuff and some murderer and little sensational 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.520 gore here and there, and he found that it sold 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:42.360 really well up until the Depression, when nothing sold really well. 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.240 Um pick up after the Depression when a very uh 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:53.880 monumental figure in tabloid history named Janetta Janetoso Pope or 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.960 Gene Pope Gene Pope jr. Um, He bought a Hurst 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.600 paper called The New York and Choir for seventy five grand, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:06.880 changed it to tabloid size, started uh printing you know, 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.719 you know, stuff that he he figured people like to 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.400 stare at a car crash, So he was actually inspired 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.760 literally by seeing people like jockeying to see the blood 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:19.560 and the gore in a car crash and thought, wow, 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:23.120 people really are disgusting and crazy, so I'm going to 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:25.440 give them what they want. And he did remember the 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.920 crime scene photography episode we talked about we gi um 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.480 he he and he sold a lot of stuff to 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.560 Jeane Pope. Um, he printed a lot of his like 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:40.839 gory crimes photos. What's his name, right, Lewis Felig, I think, 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.600 but he went by W E G EIGI Interesting. Yeah, 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.280 so I said it again. Um yeah, I was cueing 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.640 like the Executive Orders episode how many times, like I'll 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:57.360 bunch you know why because it was super interesting. Um. 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.280 So he starts selling a lot of papers um, based 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:04.559 on this new style. And then a guy named Rupert Murdoch, 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.120 who you may have heard of, who saw or prove 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.920 that you could actually have pretty wide circulation um, and 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.400 began selling News of the World in England millions of 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:20.040 copies sex scandals. And then the Pope said, you know what, 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.120 if he can sell millions and millions of copies, so 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:27.679 can I let me changed the name to the National Enquirer. Boom, Right, 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.840 the National Enquirer was born. But um, the Inquirer is 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.599 we know it still wasn't born yet. It was the 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:38.840 thing they were crazy headlines about, like interracial sex and 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:44.360 lesbianism and like horrible acts of violence, posthumous violence. There 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.880 is this one headline um about a team ripping the 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.200 head off of a corpse to get at its gold teeth, 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.640 and always with the gory crime scene photos like the 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.520 pulp comics we're doing too. Yeah, very much. It was 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.880 just very tawdry. It's um, I mean if the stuff 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.679 uh and the inquiry today is tawdry, it's this was 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.560 just like it's not fathom model. But the reason it's 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.800 not is again because of Gene Pope. So he had 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:14.040 a lot of competition U and not just he, but 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.440 the whole industry was facing a big problem in that 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.760 news stands were starting to dry. So Jane Pope came 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:24.360 up with an idea. He's like supermarkets. Everybody goes to supermarkets. 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:26.040 I need to get in there now. I stand in 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.440 the line at the checkout stand, right. But he knew 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.640 like there was no way that any any respectable supermarket 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.360 was going to sell his tabloid, his rag that the required. 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.760 So he cleaned the thing up right, he um added 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.800 way more. He took a queue from Rupert Rupert Murdoch 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.280 and his News of the World, and um added way 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:51.000 more celebrity stuff sex scandals, but nothing tawdry like you know, um, 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.320 this stuff he was talking about before that was just 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.160 really it was more like a like a the Senator 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:02.080 got caught with somebody or whatever. Um. And there's this 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:06.679 guy named James Walcutt. He wrote for the for Vanity Fair, 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:09.599 and he wrote this article called us Confidential. It was 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.320 in the June two thousand two issue of Vanity Fair. 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:16.360 It was about this and about that transition going from 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:21.120 you know, the crime scene photography to um astrology overnight 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.600 so he could get into supermarkets. Uh, he said. Um, 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.120 the Inquirer's staff was aghast. It was like asking an 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:32.160 experienced team of grave robbers to take up gardening. So 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.960 that's pretty much how the Inquirer's staff took. We got 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.040 to clean up our acts and start writing about astrology 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.920 and celebrity sex scanals. And it wasn't even cleaning up 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.280 attacked that much. It's not like you said, we're going 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.800 to become the you know, New York Times. No, but 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.240 that's why they're there. Yeah, that's why when you stand 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.160 in line at a supermarket checkout line. It's because in 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:54.000 the nineteen sixties Jeane Pope was like, we got to 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.960 get in the supermarkets. I think people either read these 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:00.840 or they don't. Like I don't think anyone dabbles in tabloids, 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:03.520 you know what I'm saying. It's kind of like soap operas, 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:05.760 Like no one just says like, let me watch a 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.160 little bit of Days of Our Lives, Like you're either 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.360 hooked on this stuff or not. I agree with that, 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.200 but I think a lot of people are guilty of 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.240 picking up the tabloid and thumbing through it and then 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.880 not buying it in the supermarket checkout line. Well, now 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:19.640 you know what they do now, and of course we're 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:21.160 going to get to this, might as well bring it up. 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:25.520 They look at People magazine and US Weekly because they 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.280 have nicked from tabloids as well and become a quote 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.480 unquote respectable thing to pick up and read. Even now, 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.560 come on, do you ever read a People magazine? I have. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.320 It's sort of tabloid at times, it is, and um 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.600 actually you can thank the Star for that. Um Star 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:48.640 used to be a tabloid sheet tabloid, right, and it 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.200 went over to the glossy format at some point. I 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.440 think that may be the late nineties, and um it, 0:15:54.880 --> 0:16:00.440 it married those two things, glossyful magazine format with tabloid, 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.720 and it was enough of his success that people was like, well, 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:06.160 we've already got the glossy magazine part. Let's just start 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.640 doing the tabloid thing. Yeah, I mean what people have, 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.880 I mean legitimate articles still, but and they're not like 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.800 making stuff up, but they've definitely gone way into the 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.000 you know, look at the cellulite on the beach in 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.080 Malibu and look at this person, and look at that person, 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.920 and who wore it better? Plastics versus asters? Yeah, exactly, 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.600 stuff like that, who wore it better? I know somebody 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:31.480 who's been reading people. Yeah, when they have the two 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.360 ladies with the same dress, so mean, especially when it's 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.600 like eight two to eight teens now, I know, especially 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:42.360 when it's like, you know, it's just means. Sometimes I'm 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:44.400 gonna start wearing hockey jerseys and they'll be like, a 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.640 who were it better? Kevin Smith or podcaster Chuck Bryant. 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.480 People go, I guess Kevin Smith, because I've never heard 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.320 of this other guy. It's the same guy. It's the 0:16:53.320 --> 0:17:26.000 same dude anyway. Alright, so, um, that's pretty much the 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.960 quick history of tabloids. Yeah here in the States, at 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.840 least England. We keep mentioning England because they're they're lousy 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.440 with it. Well, they're kind of on the leading edge 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:40.120 of the decline of tabloids right now. Yeah, let get 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.680 to that, all right. So before we go onto tabloid 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.680 stories and how they get these stories, we should point 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:51.199 out that the National Choir, the Star of the Globe, 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.320 the National Examiner, and Weekly World News, we're all purchased 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:58.040 by American Media, Inc. Like all all of those just 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.720 snapped them all up, basically, just goout on the show. Now, 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.160 every big tabloid in the United States was purchased by 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.920 this one company. And um, yeah, I think that's never 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:09.760 a good thing. Or maybe that's just me being it, 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.439 you know. Well that's the funny thing, like the title 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.720 of this sidebars, they control everything you read unless you 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.120 don't read any of those things. So, um, the the 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.080 am I, actually they're the reason the Weekly World News 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.840 shut down. Um, they were like, okay, as things losing money. 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.800 Am I posted a hundred and sixty million dollar loss 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:32.960 in two thousand and six and was facing like a 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.920 billion dollars in debt to bad Boy had to go. Yeah, 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.960 bad Boy went to the internet. Yeah that makes sense. 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:42.439 That's where bad Boy belongs. So okay, let's talk about this. 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:46.080 What what makes a tabloid? It's not just subjective. I mean, 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:48.840 it's tabloids like pornographer, you know when you see it, right, 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.680 it's tough to define. That's not um entirely the case. 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:57.560 There are some actual, um discernible distinctions among tabloids that 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.280 make a tabloid tabloid? Agreed, So what are there? Well 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:03.639 Ed points out here something really important. The key to 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.800 a tabloid story is not that it be true, just 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.639 that someone has said that it's true, and they latch 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.760 onto that person. And as long as they say, you know, 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.639 attribute these quotes to this person, then they can't be 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.720 held accountable. And that person is frequently cited as an 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:27.480 expert and a close friend. Sure, I mean, if somebody 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.840 it's all the way you present the story, if the 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.400 if you're saying, if your whole story is all about 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.560 how this person said something, yeah, it's not really about 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:38.960 the story. The story is still there, but you're focusing 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.800 on this person. It's like the the rule of the 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:44.880 of the tabloid industry. It's kind of a trick though, 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.440 because very much you're tricking people into thinking you're reading 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.480 about a story about Brandjelina. In fact, you're reading a 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:56.399 story about a former made that worked for Branchlina and 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:00.720 what they think is true, right, Or some crazy person 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.239 who has nothing to do with bran Angelina who like 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.680 just um, maybe saw one of them in a coffee 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:11.840 shop and like, notice they didn't tip or something like that. Bam, 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:15.960 there's your story. Um. Also, like we said that, they 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.840 like to add experts, and but the experts are in 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.520 no way, shape or form qualified in a lot of ways. 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:25.600 They have no credentials, they're not vetted. It's more say, like, um, 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:30.400 the example Grabmanowski uses is like a bigfoot enthusiast, Right, 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.840 if somebody spends a lot of time, uh, searching for bigfoot, 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:39.520 researching bigfoot, there there's no institute out there to qualify them, 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.320 to give them credentials. But you could reasonably make a 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:45.919 case of this person's a big foot bigfoot expert. Right. 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.440 The thing is is like the Inquirer or the Star 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:51.600 or the weekly World News is not going to the 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.240 trouble of explaining that. They just say bigfoot expert so 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:58.240 and so says that there's a bunch of these things 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:01.760 out and he's seen a bunch and he's an expert exactly. 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.960 My favorite is the leading quote, like, uh, they will 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:08.960 get the random person who saw Angelina Jolina coffee shop 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:12.320 and they will say did she look that? They would 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.959 say maybe something like yeah, she looked like she looked jittery, 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:18.679 and they would say did she look strung out and 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:23.520 that she had possibly been up for days without eating. Yeah, 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:24.879 she sort of looked like that, And then all of 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.160 a sudden, that's the quote because witnesses say she looked 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:30.080 strung out and like she had not eaten for days, 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.040 and uh, all they have to do is say yes, 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.840 exactly yes, or like would you say this? And if 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:40.120 the prison says yes and you just said that. Another 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.520 hallmark of tabloids is making a huge deal out of 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:50.280 something I guess other newspapers would consider small stuff. Yeah, 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.360 and like actually looking through other newspapers to find some 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:58.440 quasi interesting story and then blowing it up into possibly 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:02.879 a front page feature. Um, just by getting into this story, 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.920 really interviewing a lot of people involved um, and then 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.399 maybe throwing an expert or something like that, and just 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.320 basically making a lot a lot of hay out of 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:19.120 something very um kind of negligible. UM. And this by 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:21.199 adding a bunch of quotes and stuff and what do 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:22.720 you think about this? What do you think about that? 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:26.399 It takes it from being about the story, right, like 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:31.159 a UM man saved a goat from a burning building 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:35.879 to what these people think about this man and his goat? 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.359 And you can do anything with that exactly the love affair, 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.560 you mean, maybe who knows? As somebody said it, then 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:49.040 they could conceivably report if anyone said, um. Celebrity Uh. 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:51.919 Celebrity news is obviously one of the biggest parts of 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:56.240 tabloids these days at least, and they the writers have informants, 0:22:56.280 --> 0:23:00.840 all kinds of informants from um secure people who had 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:02.719 worked for them, or who worked at venues where they 0:23:02.760 --> 0:23:08.639 might have been hairstylists, nail salon people like anyone that 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:10.960 can dish up dirt, and they get in the rotation 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:13.960 and uh, I remember we shot you ever heard of 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:19.000 Janet Charlton, No, you might recognize her. She was a 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:24.440 gossip columnist and think did stuff for TV like entertainment tonight. 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:26.320 But that's how she made her living. And she was 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:28.680 like one of the more famous ones. And we shot 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:30.520 a commercial at her house one time in l a 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:33.920 and she was there hanging out and uh, I was like, 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:36.280 you gotta tell me some stories. And of course she 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:38.159 just loved that kind of thing, and she would just 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:41.560 sit down and regale us with stories about Michael Douglas 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:44.080 and his secret sex addiction and and she was she 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:46.000 always said like, well, you know, my sources tell me 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:49.399 she had a list a rollodex of people on the 0:23:49.400 --> 0:23:53.040 bank roll that she would pay, you know, a few 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:54.800 bucks if it was not a big deal, to a 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:56.720 lot of money, if it was a big celebrity with 0:23:56.760 --> 0:24:01.719 big news, and it's um, that's pretty much standard. Like 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:06.160 you were saying. There, there's this guy named um Paul 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:09.520 McMullen who wrote for I think News of the World, 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:13.760 and um, you know Dentel Elliott. He was he was 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:17.800 Indiana Jones's sidekick. I can't remember his name, but the 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:21.199 older British guy. Okay, here's this this huge star in 0:24:21.320 --> 0:24:24.800 Great Britain and he had a very very beloved too 0:24:25.280 --> 0:24:27.080