Troublemakers And The Green Line

Michael Hedges February 11, 2019 Follow on Twitter

Tabloids have a terrible reputation. Some of it is deserved. Revealing deep dark secrets is a reader magnet, even when veracity challenged. Lapses in journalistic judgement, from making up stuff to passing around a little cash, are quickly forgotten. The next day readers are ready for something flashy on page one.

Last week notorious US tabloid National Enquirer gained an extra measure of notoriety. Perhaps it was intended, all publicity being good in the post-modern media space, or perhaps not. At the very least, in the best tabloid style, it promised a messy tangle.

The National Enquirer published in January a splashy cover piece about very famous and ultra-rich Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of wildly successful online retailer Amazon, shortly after a rather low pitch announcement of his impending divorce. As it says on the masthead: Enquiring minds want to know. The National Enquirer provided scant details not already known with the promise of something more salacious. This is called marketing.

Apparently, the National Enquirer had certain photos, also in the tabloid tradition. Mr. Bezos, however, went on the offensive about the offensive and presented certain communications from legal representatives of American Media Inc., National Enquirer publisher, suggesting a certain quid pro quo: make a statement absolving the National Enquirer of “influence of political forces” and the photos would never see the light of day. Mr. Bezos, who personally owns the Washington Post, hired a well-known private investigator to flesh out certain details, which turned American Media chief executive David Pecker “apoplectic.”

The twists and turns require a Venn Diagram or, maybe, a salt shaker. The legal term, extortion, has been tossed around. Mr. Bezos asked federal prosecutors to help sort it out. Mr. Pecker offered his own investigation. Oddly, perhaps, the government of Saudi Arabia issued a statement denying a role in any of it.

Newspaper people heartily distinguish between the tabloid format, a reasonably specific size and composition style, and tabloid journalism, the crazy and nasty stuff. These descriptions sometimes intersect, sometimes not. Tabloid journalism, which the National Enquirer has practiced with abandon since the 1950s, has been both celebrated and castigated for walking on the wild side.

In no small measure, tabloids pander to the salacious. Gossip is the stock-in-trade. Celebrities, sports stars and politicians are considered fair game, privacy boundaries unknown. The biggest tabloids, figuratively, employ more lawyers than reporters. Some have budget lines for lawsuit settlements and insurance policies covering such.

A decade ago UK tabloid News Of The World was aflame from a scandal of its own making. Its investigators were caught surreptitiously monitoring and recording private telephones. As the depth of the phone hacking scandal lurched into common knowledge, a News Of The World reporter was honored for uncovering corruption in cricket. That did not save it. In 2011, News International (now known as News UK), a subsidiary of News Corporation, unceremoniously closed News Of The World. A day later several employees were arrested. Privacy rights leapt into the public consciousness. Investigative journalists attended workshops on ethics.

The tabloid style is certainly not limited to the English-speaking world. Top-selling German tabloid Bild, published by Axel Springer, is quite conservative editorially. In 2012 its topless “page one girls” were moved to page three and, more or less, covered up last year. In 2015 Bild and its sister tabloid B.Z. published Arabic-language inserts to welcome migrants. France and Spain have no big tabloid newspapers, as such, but plenty of gossip magazines. Japan’s Nikkan Gendai tabloid chases scandals, mostly related to sports.

The dispute between Jeff Bezos and the National Enquirer is off to a loud start. Well-known people have taken tabloids, TV stations and, more recently, online portals to court for privacy invasion and other injustice. Some win. Some don’t. No lawsuits have yet been filed. The story will play out on the front pages.

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