WEBVTT - How Tabloids Work 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.320 It's ready. Are you welcome to you Stuff you Should 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:16.320 Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.439 to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.440 Bryant uh, and this is Stuff you should Know. It's podcast. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:28.479 It's audio only, um, but coming soon it will also 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:33.200 include smells. Oh yeah, smell a vision, not vision, smellow 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:38.360 found smell it. We'll just call it smellow rama. I 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.760 mean grumpy people today. I'm not grumpy. You're grumpy. I'm 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:45.360 grumpy Jerry. Jerry's grumpy. I'm fine. Y'all were grumping at 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.120 each other when I came in here. No, Jerry was 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.760 mad at me for being mad at her, which doesn't count. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.440 It's just everyone's grumpy. It's such a grumpy day. I'm 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:57.760 not grumpy. It's just head legitimate grumpy, right stripe. Everyone's scrapy, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.760 so Chuck. Yes, I want to tell you about a 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:10.959 great American hero, William Katka Uh. Many years ago, in 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.640 the wilds of I wish I could remember where he 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:21.880 was found Mississippi, a little guy known as bat Boy 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.040 was captured. He was caught on a rooftop during a 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:29.880 flood in Mississippi, and the authorities seized him and UM 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.160 took him into their care. He became a ward of 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.000 the state. That makes sense because bat boys are known 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.360 to go to higher ground during flooding. Yeah, and he 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.960 did true to form uh so uh bat Boy at 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:47.200 first he didn't like this captivity, UM, but eventually he 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:52.040 kind of became something of a patriot by um volunteering 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.000 to go search for Osama bin Laden and his Al 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:01.440 Qaeda operatives UM in the caves of Afghanistan. The reason 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.560 bat Boy was so good at it because he was 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:09.400 raising caves half bat half boy name Um. He wasn't 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.720 able to find Ben Lawden, but he still returned to 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:15.359 the U S a hero after a long long flight 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.440 because he just flew himself. Of course, and we know 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:24.080 of bat boys exploits thanks to a little newspaper known 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:28.320 as The Weekly World News. Have you heard of this? 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.720 Two things? I used to subscribe to The Weekly World Yeah, 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.239 for like a year in high school, me and my 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:40.040 buddy rad did because it was fun Radcliffe Radford, And 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:45.440 two I didn't realize that bat boy they continued his exploits. 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.640 I think bat Boys sold a lot of papers for 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:48.920 the Well, I knew he did, but I didn't know. 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:50.840 I didn't know they kept it up. That's awesome. I'm 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.480 glad to know that he was fighting the terrorists. He 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:56.560 he did, he tried to. I don't know if he 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.640 was successful. At least he went equipped more than with 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.560 just a sword. Um. But yeah, so bat Boy was 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.359 a prominent character, I guess. And the Weekly World News, 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:13.720 which which also bills itself as the world's only reliable newspapers. Yeah, 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:18.800 that that little tagline or whatever. Yeah, it's not around 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:23.000 anymore in print. Yeah, I think I remember shutting down 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.160 and being sort of sad. Is online, I guess. Yeah, 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.000 in two thousand and eight it moved to and moved online. 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:32.960 So really every aspect of that story from this outrageous 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.480 um claim that bat Boy was captured and sent to 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:41.800 Afghanistan to UM calling itself tongue in cheek, the World's 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.400 most reliable, the world's only reliable newspaper, to it's shutting 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.640 down and going online because of massive profit losses after 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.920 being purchased by this huge conglomerate of tabloid papers. The 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:58.240 Weekly World News is a perfect analogy for the course 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.240 of tabloids of the last like twenty as a whole. Yeah, 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.440 and we're gonna dig into that. Um I think it's funny. 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:07.360 I never because I didn't know the little tagline, but 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.040 I guess they figured if we're just going to be 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.360 making up stories, because the Weekly World News, for those 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:14.920 of you who haven't read it, isn't just a tabloid. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:19.040 I mean it's like it's it's fan fiction. I mean, 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.200 it's completely ridiculous. They don't pretend. But that's why it's 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.520 funny that they said that the only reliable thing. They said, Wow, 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:28.200 we might as well just say that in the thing, 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.320 get it? Yes, And one of their apparently one of 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:33.800 their editors, is quoted as saying, I could only find 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:35.719 one source for this quote, so I don't know how 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:38.120 true it is. It could be made up, which would 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.719 be kind of like this apropos meta parody of the 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:45.920 whole thing, But um he said, if our if our 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:50.480 readers are informed, it's usually by accident. Really, so they 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.440 were well aware. That's great and it isn't an extreme example, 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.040 but there are there are some aspects of the Weekly 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:58.080 World News that do fit the bill of that of 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.560 a standard table. So I mean, let's talk about it. 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.720 What what is a tabloid? Well, Um, should we start 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:06.320 at the beginning or should we just talk about it 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:07.920 a little bit then do the history? Do you want 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.080 to do the history first? Man, Yeah, let's do the 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.640 history first, because positive that we don't practice. So I 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.320 did see, Um, there was one slight error. This is 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.880 an ed Grabanowski article, which are always great. But did 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.560 you see this other etymology for the word tabloid with 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:28.600 the pill company UM in the late eighteen hundreds, apparently 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.960 um Burrows, Welcome and Company was a pharmaceutical company in England. 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.919 They produced at the time, like medicines, were all like 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.880 BC powder good, he's powder, They're all powdered. And he 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.720 I think was the first one to make into a 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:49.640 pill by compressing the powder and he called it a tabloid. Yeah, 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.920 it probably was. And um that that word became to 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:58.040 mean anything figuratively, that was a small dose of anything. 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:02.920 So the word tabloid, it actually became came before I 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:07.880 believe about ten years before the shrunken newspaper, Uh, the 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.960 physical newspaper shrinking. Well, it still works. It's like the 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:15.400 origin of life on Earth comes from another planet. But really, 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:18.240 where did the origin of life begin? Right, it doesn't 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.440 answer the question. It's the same thing, like, okay, so 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.440 maybe that's the origin of the word tabloid. Then it 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:30.520 was associated with newspapers. The tabloid paper ums printed on 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:36.600 a smaller, more compact version of the normal newspaper newsprint 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.560 called a broadsheet. Right, so the tabloid is a smaller, 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:44.200 more compact version. The broadsheet is longer and wider UM 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:48.880 and then the tabloid were usually printed on the smaller paper, 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.160 hence the word yeah. So at first it was a pill, 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.240 then it became the size of the paper, and then 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.720 later on it just became um the style of the 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.400 paper and size, but really the style. But tabloids, as 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.440 were explaining them, are basically like um. They are also 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:14.080 commonly referred to as rags, as um gutter public Yeah, 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.600 they're gossip sheets, whatever it's it's basically it's a it's 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:25.080 a uh, slightly shifty, underhanded newspaper and um tabloids. One 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.480 of the ways that they exist and always have existed 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:33.600 is in comparison to quote legitimate newspapers. So like originally 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.520 newspapers that say, like the beginning the early nineteenth century. 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:42.920 They were extremely stuffy. They were extremely expensive. They were 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.760 like six cents per which was like half a day's 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.120 pay for the average labor. Really dry. Man. If you 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.000 ever read these old New York Times articles, there's like 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.960 they just really just you know, they lay out the 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.440 facts and then say the end, exactly like the AP 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.080 used to do. Until a few years ago. The AP 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:06.320 always did that who, what, when, how, where and why 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:10.880 the old journalistic pyramid exactly and then like maybe a 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.440 quote in there and that was it. Um. And so 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.280 out of this, I guess kind of boredom and a 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.200 need for the working class to be able to, you know, 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:22.920 get their news too, because I couldn't afford it, came 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.200 the predecessors of tabloids, called the penny Press. So they 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:30.600 were cheaper, and they also did something different. They took 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:36.240 stories from just these boring facts political stories, business stories, 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.800 that kind of thing, and started working on human interest stories. 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.080 And they changed the style of writing. Sentences were shorter, 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:47.160 paragraphs were shorter, way more emotion It was it was 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.760 designed for that, like listen to the triumph of this 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.200 family over their evil landlord or whatever kind of what 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:58.320 we see now in mainstream newspapers exactly. Yes, a lot, 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:02.520 a lot of our stream um media owes quite a 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.440 bit to the evolution of tabloids, and there's actually a 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.080 point where it kind of spread. Finally it made a jump. 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.839 But you can see throughout the history of tabloids and 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:15.200 newspapers this interplay where tabloid's almost kind of break ground. Yeah, 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.400 take a bunch of heat and flak for it, and 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.920 then newspapers like latch onto what they're doing. After after 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.120 it becomes co opted in normal behind the guys of 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:30.360 you know, we're the upstanding publication. Disgusting, right, I'm disgusted 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.240 by it, all um. Yellow journalism came about in the 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:37.120 era of William Randolph Hurst with his New York Journal 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.760 later called The New York Journal American, and he was 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.840 the first person in the United States, at least, because 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.320 I think in England it even started out before us, 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.480 but not mistaken. In England, I think they were kind 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.200 of like the birth of some of the more tabloid 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:57.880 style writing. But in America William randolf Hurst did with 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.120 all of a sudden he are to doing some celebrity 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.600 stuff and some murderer and little sensational gore here and there, 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.600 and he found that it sold really well up until 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:12.679 the Depression, when nothing's old really well. Um pick up 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:17.720 after the Depression when a very monumental figure in tabloid 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:23.800 history named Janetta Jenettos Pope or Gene Pope Jane Pope 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.959 j Jr. Um He bought a hearst paper called the 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:31.520 New York and Choir for Grand, changed it to tabloid size, 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:38.120 started uh printing you know, you know, stuff that he 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.320 figured people like to stare at a car crash. So 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:45.319 he was actually inspired literally by seeing people like jockeying 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.080 to see the blood and the gore in a car 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.520 crash and thought, Wow, people really are disgusting and crazy, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.000 so I'm going to give them what they want. And 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.240 he did remember the crime scene photography episode we talked 0:10:56.240 --> 0:11:00.480 about Uigi um he he and he sold a lot 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.600 of stuff to Geene Pope. Um he printed a lot 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:08.160 of his like gory crimes photos. What's his name, Lewis 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.079 fellig I think, but he went by W E G 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:16.840 E EG interesting So I said it again, Um yeah, 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.120 I was cueing like the Executive Orders episode, how many 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.880 times like I'll bunch, do you know why because it 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:27.320 was super interesting. Um. So he starts selling a lot 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.719 of papers based on this new style. And then a 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.160 guy named Rupert Murdoch who you may have heard of, 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:38.120 who saw or proved that you could actually have pretty 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:42.080 wide circulation um, and began selling News of the World 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:47.680 in England millions of copies sex scandals. And then the 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:49.680 Pope said, you know what, if he can sell millions 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:51.920 and millions of copies, so can I let me change 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:56.880 the name of the National Enquirer. Boom right, the National 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:59.560 Enquirer was born, but um, the Inquirer is we know 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.760 it's ill wasn't born yet. It was the thing they 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:08.760 were crazy headlines about, like interracial sex and lesbianism and 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:13.120 like horrible acts of violence posthumous violence. There is this 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.760 one headline, um about a team ripping the head off 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.240 of a corpse to get at its gold teeth, and 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.360 always with the gory crime scene photos like the pulp 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.120 comics were doing too. Yeah, very much. It was just 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.880 very tawdry. It's um, I mean, if the stuff and 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.559 the Inquiry today is tawdry, it's this was just like 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.520 it's not fathomed. But the reason it's not is again 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.280 because of Gene Pope, so he had a lot of competition. 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.040 And not just he, but the whole industry was facing 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.839 a big problem in that news stands were starting to dry. 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.400 So Jeane Pope came up with an idea. He's like supermarkets. 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:53.640 Everybody goes to supermarkets. I need to get in there. 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.240 And now I stand in the line at the checkout stand. Right. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.360 But he knew like there was no way that any 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:02.480 any respectable supermarket it was gonna sell his tabloid, his rag. 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:08.240 So he cleaned the thing up, right. He um added 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.240 way more. He took a queue from Rupert Rupert Murdoch 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.760 and his News of the World, and um added way 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:18.440 more celebrity stuff, sex scandals, but nothing tawdry like you know, 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.400 um this stuff he was talking about before it that 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:24.640 was just really it was more like a like a 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.920 the Senator got caught with somebody or whatever. Um. And 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.719 there's this guy named James Walcutt. He wrote for the 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.880 for Vanity Fair, and he wrote this article called us Confidential. 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.079 It was in the June two thousand two issue of 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.760 Vanity Fair. It was about this and about that transition 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.560 going from you know, the crime scene photography to um 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:53.040 astrology overnight so he could get into supermarkets. Uh, he said. Um. 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.600 The Inquirer's staff was aghast. It was like asking an 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.679 experienced team of grave robbers to take up gardening. So 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.440 that's pretty much how the Inquirer's staff took We got 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:05.480 to clean up our acts and start writing about astrology 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.360 and celebrity sex scandals. And it wasn't even cleaning them 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.720 attacked that much. Just not like you said, we're going 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.600 to become the you know, New York Times. But that's 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:16.800 why they're there. Yeah, that's why when you stand in 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.200 line at a supermarket checkout line, it's because in the 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.680 nineteen sixties, Jeane Pope was like, we got to get 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.560 in the supermarkets. I think people either read these or 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.280 they don't. Like I don't think anyone dabbles in tabloids, 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.000 you know what I'm saying. It's kind of like soap operas, 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:34.240 Like no one just says, like, let me watch a 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.640 little bit of Days of Our Lives, Like you're either 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:38.840 hooked on this stuff or not. I agree with that, 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.640 but I think a lot of people are guilty of 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:43.680 picking up the tabloid and thumbing through it and then 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.320 not buying it in the supermarket checkout line. Well, now 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.080 you know what they do now, and of course we're 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:49.640 gonna get to this, might as well bring it up. 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:54.040 They look at People Magazine and US Weekly because they 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.760 have nicked from tabloids as well and become a quote 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:01.000 unquote respectable thing to pick up and read, even though, 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.000 come on, do you ever read a People magazine? I have, 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.840 it's sort of tabloid at times, it is, and um 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.080 actually you can thank the Star for that. Um. Star 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:17.040 used to be a tabloid sheet tabloid. Yeah, and it 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:19.640 went over to the glossy format at some point. I 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.440 think that maybe the late nineties, and um it, it 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.920 married those two things, glossy people magazine format with tabloid 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.200 and it was enough of his success that people was like, well, 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.680 we've already got the glossy magazine part, let's just start 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.040 doing the tabloid thing. Yeah. I mean, well, people have 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.360 I mean, legitimate articles still, but and they're not like 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.280 making stuff up, but they've definitely gone way into the 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.440 you know, look at the cellulite on the beach in 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.560 Malibu and look at this person and look at that person, 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.960 and who wore it better? Plastics? Yeah, exactly, stuff like that, 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:59.160 who wore it better? I know somebody who's been reading people. Yeah, 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.240 when you have the two ladies with the same dress 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.640 me and especially when it's like two to eighteen, now, 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.720 I know, especially when it's like you know, it's just 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:12.520 means sometimes I'm gonna start wearing hockey jerseys and they'll 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.360 be like, a who aren't better Kevin Smith or podcaster 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.640 Chuck Bryant. People go, I guess Kevin Smith because I've 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.680 never heard of this other guy. It's the same. It's 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:24.880 the same dude anyway. Alright, So um, that's pretty much 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:28.840 the quick history of tabloids. Yeah here in the States, 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.360 at least England. We keep mentioning England because they're they're 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.120 lousy with it. Well, they're kind of on the leading 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:38.840 edge of the decline of tabloids right now. Yeah, let 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.880 get to that, all right. So before we go onto 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.440 tabloid stories and how they get these stories, we should 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:49.680 point out that in the National Choir, the Star of 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.640 the Globe, the National Examiner, and Weekly World News, we're 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:56.520 all purchased by American Media, Inc. Like all all of 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.200 those just snap them all up basically just about on 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.320 the show, now, every big tabloid in the United States 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.240 was purchased by this one company, and um, yeah, I 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.199 think that's never a good thing. Or maybe that's just 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:10.240 me being it, you know. Well that's the funny thing. 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:15.480 Like the title of this sidebars, they control everything you 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.520 read unless you don't read any of those things. So, um, 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:23.480 the the am I. Actually they're the reason the Weekly 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:25.880 World News shut down. Um, they were like, okay, these 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.719 things losing money. Am I posted a hundred and sixty 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.359 million dollar loss in two thousand and six and was 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.560 facing like a billion dollars in debt. Yeah, bad boy 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.400 boys of the Internet. Yeah that makes sense. That's where 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.720 bad boy belongs. So okay, let's talk about this. What 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.040 what makes a tabloid? It's not just subjective. I mean, 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.520 it's tabloids like pornography, you know when you see it, 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:51.280 all right, it's tough to define. That's not um entirely 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.679 the case. There are some actual, um discernible distinctions among 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.280 tabloids that make a tabloid a tabloid, I agreed, So 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.040 what are they? Well Ed points out here something really important. 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.439 The key to a tabloid story is not that it 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.760 be true, just that someone has said that it's true, right, 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.199 and they latch onto that person. And as long as 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.840 they say, you know, attribute these quotes to this person, 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.439 then they can't be held accountable. And that person is 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:24.520 frequently cited as an expert and a close friend. Sure, 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.320 I mean, if somebody it's all the way you present 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.480 the story. If the if you're saying, if your whole 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.800 story is all about how this person said something, it's 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:36.880 not really about the story. The story is still there, 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.800 but you're focusing on this person. It's like the the 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.280 rule of the of the tabloid industry. It's kind of 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:45.560 a trick though, because very much you're tricking people into 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.960 thinking you're reading about a story about Brandjelina. In fact, 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.840 you're reading a story about a former made that worked 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.680 for branch Elina and what they think is true, right, 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.760 or some crazy person who has nothing to do with 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:06.000 Brandngelina who like just um, maybe saw one of them 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.280 in a coffee shop and like, notice they didn't tip 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.600 or something like that. Bam, there's your story. Um. Also, 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.320 like we said that, they like to add experts, and 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:18.800 but the experts are in no way, shape or form 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.840 qualified In a lot of ways, they have no credentials. 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.399 They're not vetted. It's more say, like, um, the example 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:30.880 Grabmanowski uses is like a bigfoot enthusiast. Right, if somebody 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.960 spends a lot of time, uh, searching for bigfoot, researching bigfoot. 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:38.560 There there's no institute out there to qualify them, to 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.520 give them credentials, but you could reasonably make a case 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.239 of this person's a big foot bigfoot expert. Right. The 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.639 thing is is like the Inquirer or the Star or 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:50.919 the weekly World News is not going to the trouble 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.320 of explaining that. They just say bigfoot expert so and 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.440 so says that there's a bunch of these things out 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:00.760 and he's seen a bunch and he's an expert exactly. 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:03.920 My favorite is the leading quote, like, uh, they will 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.880 get the random person who saw Angelina Jolina coffee shop, 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.280 and they will say did she look that? They would 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.919 say maybe something like, yeah, she looked like she looked jittery, 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.679 and they would say did she look strung out and 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:22.400 that she had possibly been up for days without eating. Yeah, 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:23.840 she sort of looked like that, And then all of 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.400 a sudden, that's the quote. Witnesses say she looked strung 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.480 out and like she had not eaten for days, and Uh, 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.360 all they have to do is say yes, exactly yes, 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:36.200 or like would you say this? And if the prison 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:40.280 says yes and you just said that. Another hallmark of 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:45.280 tabloids is making a huge deal out of something I 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:49.600 guess other newspapers would consider small stuff. Yeah, and like 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.920 actually looking through other newspapers to find some quasi interesting 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.840 story and then blowing it up into possibly a front 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:02.439 page feature. Um, just by getting into this story, really 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:06.200 interviewing a lot of people involved, um, and then maybe 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.160 throwing an expert or something like that, and just basically 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:11.679 making a lot a lot of hay out of something 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:18.520 very um, kind of negligible. UM. And this by adding 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:20.280 a bunch of quotes and stuff and what do you 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:21.920 think about this? What do you think about that? It 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:25.520 takes it from being about the story, right, like a 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:31.760 um man saved a goat from a burning building, to 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.840 what these people think about this man and his goat? 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.320 And you can do anything with that exactly the love affair, 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.520 you mean, maybe who knows if somebody said it, then 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:48.000 they could conceivably report if anyone said, um. Celebrity Uh, 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:50.879 celebrity news is obviously one of the biggest parts of 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:55.200 tabloids these days at least, and they the writers have informants, 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:59.800 all kinds of informants, from um security, people who would 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:01.639 work from them, or who worked at venues where they 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:07.600 might have been hairstylists, nail salon people like anyone that 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:09.880 can dish up dirt, and they get in the rotation 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:12.920 and uh I, remember we shot you ever heard of 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:17.919 Janet Charlton, No, you might recognize her. She was a 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:23.360 gossip columnist and think did stuff for TV like Entertainment Tonight. 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:25.280 But that's how she made her living. And she was 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:27.600 like one of the more famous ones. And we shot 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:29.480 a commercial at her house one time in l A. 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:32.840 And she was there hanging out, and uh I was like, 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.200 you gotta tell me some stories. And of course she 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:37.080 just loved that kind of thing, and she would just 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:40.480 sit down and regale us with stories about Michael Douglas 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:43.040 and his secret sex addiction, and and she was He 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:44.959 always said like, well, you know, my sources tell me. 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.320 She had a list, a rollodex of people on the 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:51.960 bank roll that she would pay, you know, a few 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:53.760 bucks if it was not a big deal, to a 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:55.679 lot of money, if it was a big celebrity with 0:22:55.680 --> 0:23:00.680 big news and it's um, that's pretty much standard, like 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:05.080 you were saying. There, there's this guy named, um, Paul 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:08.440 McMullen who wrote for I think News of the World, 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:12.679 and um, you know Dentel Elliott he was he was 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:16.760 Indiana Jones's sidekick. I can't remember his name, but the 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:20.119 older British guy. Okay, here's this this huge star in 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:23.560 Great Britain and he had a very very beloved too 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:26.000 and he had a daughter who was addicted to heroin. 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.480 And after he died, Um, she took like a big 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.600 turn for the worst. And this cop tipped off I 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:35.560 think another person who in turn tipped off Paul McMullin. 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:37.959 But the cop got a few hundred pounds for it. 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:42.360 Um that this girl was like, she's kind of a prostitute, 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:45.280 she's so much of a heroin addict, So whatever you 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:49.679 want to do with that. Paul McMullin goes and like 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:53.320 offers to pay this this lady like drug money for 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:55.480 sex or whatever, and she agrees, and like all of 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:58.520