This is not a pretty story.
It concerns a difficult, deeply troubled, off-and-on relationship between mainstream newspapers and supermarket tabloids.
The following is an exclusive excerpt from a secretly recorded session that a well-known big-city daily newspaper recently had with its therapist.
Paper: I feel so ashamed. I thought it was over. I thought I could stay away. But then . . .
Therapist: Then what? It`s important to talk about it.
Paper: Then I went back . . .
Therapist: To the Enquirer?
Paper: No, it was the Star this time. They had all this stuff about Bill Clinton, and I just couldn`t resist. They used me. I feel so dirty. What will my readers think?
Therapist: You think you`re better than the Star.
Paper: I know I am! And the Enquirer and the Globe and the Sun and the whole sleazy bunch! All they care about is trash and gossip and rumors and weird stories about space aliens-I`m sorry, I didn`t think I`d break down like this.
Therapist: It`s OK. Here`s a handkerchief. Please continue.
Paper: Anyway, they`re all so superficial and sensational and manipulative. All they talk about is sex and movie stars and Princess Di and Elvis.
Therapist: But don`t you both often write about the same things? You both covered the Willie Smith trial, didn`t you? And the Mike Tyson and Jeffrey Dahmer stories? Those are very sensational. You also write about movie stars and the British royal family. But you talk as if you and the tabloids aren`t in the same business.
Paper: We`re not, not really. Don`t you see? We`re serious, and they`re not. They don`t care about Truth and Justice. They just want to titillate and make money.
Therapist: And you don`t?
Paper: Well . . .
All right, readers. Do you see the problem here?
Defining `tabloid`
Whenever embracing a story that appears first in a supermarket tabloid, mainstream papers believe that they`re being unfaithful to their principles, that they`re committing journalistic adultery.
The issue that drove the big-city daily paper to its therapist`s couch, of course, was its decision to write about Gennifer Flowers` account of her alleged love affair with Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton that was unveiled in the Star.
To understand the conflicting emotions of the big-city newspapers, you have to understand the tabloids.
First, there are tabloids and there are tabloids, which is to say that some, to put it kindly, are more credible than others.
That`s why mainstream papers hopped on the Star article but ignored a more startling story this week in another tabloid.
The Weekly World News reports that John F. Kennedy`s tomb in Arlington National Cemetery is empty.
This tends to substantiate the tabloid`s earlier disclosures that ”a white-haired, ailing JFK,” now 74, met last January with President Bush at the White House, one of several clandestine meetings Kennedy has held with world leaders since 1988.
Now that`s a bombshell! Not even Oliver Stone has suggested that Kennedy was still alive.
But you didn`t see anything about this in the Chicago Tribune or The New York Times or The Washington Post.
Nor did you see anything about other recent Weekly World News scoops-that Fidel Castro is smuggling in Big Macs from the U.S. several times a week for himself while his fellow Cubans go hungry and that the Loch Ness Monster has been captured and . . . is pregnant.
That`s because on the credibility radar, the top stories in the Weekly World News don`t even show up as tiny blips.
The same goes for the Sun, which achieved notoriety last year when its attorney defended it (unsuccessfully) in a libel suit with this assertion:
”Most reasonable people recognize that the stories (in the Sun) are essentially fiction.”
All reasonable people with inquiring minds also should be able to identify the six biggest supermarket tabloids and understand their
differences.
They are the National Enquirer, the Star and the Weekly World News, owned by the Enquirer/Star Group; and the National Examiner, the Globe and the Sun, owned by Globe Communications.
Sharing an umbrella
The combined weekly circulation of the first three is about 8 million;
the second trio sells about 2.5 million a week.
Each has a competitive counterpart with a similar approach and mix of stories.
The Sun and the Weekly World clash on the battlefield of the fanciful and the lurid; the Star and the Globe go at each other with a preponderance of celebrity items; and the National Enquirer and the National Examiner contend with a variety of stories: human interest, medical, consumer tips, celebrity staples.
While the Enquirer, the Examiner, the Globe and the Star insist that their credibility standards are as high as those for mainstream papers, they cope with a widespread stigma.
It probably stems from a widely held perception that tabloids play fast and loose with the facts and are always losing libel suits.
It`s a bad rap, say the tabs.
”We take ourselves and our truthfulness very seriously,” says Iain Calder, editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer. ”We also have one of the best law firms in America working for us-Williams & Connolly, which are also lawyers for Newsweek and The Washington Post.
”Once a week two of their lawyers fly here to check our top stories. Nothing runs without their approval. We get very, very few lawsuits, and when we do, we win them.”
The Supreme Court rulings that protect the mainstream press also apply to tabloids, and these decisions make it extremely difficult for public officials and figures to sue successfully for libel.
First, they most prove that what was written about them was untrue, and, second, that the newspaper published a false statement knowing it was false or with a ”reckless disregard” for its truth.
While some mainstream papers may be uncomfortable sharing the same legal umbrella, a more likely cause of anxiety is a sense that both are increasingly working the same fields.
That`s the opinion of Everette Dennis, executive director of Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University in New York City.
The gap narrows
”I think there`s been a blurring of the line between news and entertainment in the last few years,” Dennis says. ”Supermarket tabloids have become somewhat more serious, and newspapers and newsmagazines today are much less serious than they once were.
”Tabloids traditionally took the aberrant stories the mainstream papers were too squeamish to do-the tasteless stuff on police blotters, gossip and rumors that couldn`t be substantiated, the single-source accusations. I think that`s changed.”
Dennis thinks the result may be that mainstream papers are more relaxed.
”There`s certainly a willingness for the mainstream media to move into areas heretofore verboten and highly sensational,” he says.
”The change is driven by tabloid television, which has made it more palatable for the `respectable` daily newspaper to enter the fray of sex and violence and sensationalism, for better or worse.”
`We work harder`
While some overlapping is inevitable, mainstream papers argue that at least they don`t pay for interviews, a practice they say undermines credibility.
Again, the tabs cry foul.
”I don`t think paying for stories endangers their accuracy; we do it to ensure exclusivity,” Calder says. ”If it takes $20,000 or $100,000, we pay. This doesn`t mean we put any less effort in finding if the story is true.”
Estimates of what the Star paid Flowers range from $50,000 to $170,000. Star Editor Richard Kaplan won`t say how much he spent, only that the estimates he has seen are wrong.
Then he attacks his critics for being lazy.
”We are amazed that a story like this (the allegations against Clinton)
has been lying around for two years and was not picked up by the so-called mainstream press,” Kaplan says. ”I would hardly characterize that as a philosophy that would win a Pulitzer Prize.”
And for their hypocrisy. ”While I`m being lambasted by the right hand of the mainstream media, the left hand is printing what we`ve written and asking for Part 2 of our story.”
If anyone is still confused, Calder will gladly explain the differences between his tab and the mainstream.
”We sell a lot more copies than you guys, and we pay our journalists better,” he says. ”Very few of our reporters make less than $60,000
(annually). The average is probably $70,000, and we have some in the high 90s. And our editors make more than our reporters.”
One more thing. ”We work harder,” Calder says. ”This means we break big stories. In `88, we put the final nail in Gary Hart`s coffin with that photograph of Donna Rice on his lap on the yacht.”
He also points to the John Belushi story.
”The Los Angeles police and the district attorney had closed the case. We found his drug supplier. We spent weeks tracking her down, and we got her to admit she killed John by injecting him with drugs.
”The case was reopened, and she was convicted and sentenced to prison. The Los Angeles Times would have won a Pulitzer for the story. We were also the first on the Willie Smith story to find another woman who said she had been raped by him.
”We do this all the time. The mainstream papers ought to stop whining about us and go out and do something.”
Ouch. Excuse us while we call our therapist for an appointment.
