As the World (Re)turns
You wouldn’t think that the passing of a tabloid would have inspired so much press. But when the Weekly World News folded (pardon the pun) in 2007, sources as diverse as Wired and Reuters took notice.
For 28 years, the WWN was something of a high-camp version of the New York Daily News, or the National Enquirer crossed with The Onion. The closing of the world’s most bizzare fishwrap left a void on newsstands, and in readers’ hearts, ever since.
What I always loved about the paper was that it made no pretense of being “serious” news; every page was delivered with a nod and a wink. And what news it was. Elvis sightings, Bat Boy, alien Senators, and incessant rumors of apocalypse rubbed elbows with “miracle” cures, “miracle” diets, and a host of other miraculous occurances that made all this supernatural seem downright ordinary. To read the WWN was to be made aware of another world that, if the light was just so and your glasses a bit smudged, might come into being at the periphery of your vision.
Bat Boy fans and bereft Elvis followers, take heart. The Weekly World News is back, in all its questionable glory. Not only is the website considerably beefed up (the paper had continued online), but it can be found on paper again, as an insert section in the tabloid The Sun. Rumor has it (rather suitably in the form of a badly written, questionably sourced Wikipedia entry) that the News will soon be back at a checkout near you as a standalone publication.
I can hardly wait.
Tags: News, Tabloids, Weekly World News
January 4th, 2009 at 3:11 am
Like you, I grew up reading the WWN headlines in the checkout stand. My maternal grandfather would occasionally pick one up, but at that point I’m pretty sure he thought it was real news. I thought it was simply tabloid BS for the gullible.
My eyes were opened a few years ago when a coworker purchased a WWN desk calendar and hung it on the outside of his cubicle. Every day I came in, read the article, and laughed. I had no idea that WWN was, in fact, a venue for comedy writers. In hindsight, it may have been more consistently funny than my Onion calendar (although nobody beats The Onion for headlines). Or maybe just one writer, as the voice was very consistent (and a joy to read). I’m very glad to see it return.
January 4th, 2009 at 9:08 am
I always shied away from anything having to do with tabloids. Then one day, I saw a headline that was just way to ridiculous to pass up, so I bought a copy. I was hooked… it’s one thing to say that something’s the equivalent of watching a car crash; this was like a demolition derby. It was awful, but you knew it was on purpose. I mean, how in the hell could anybody take seriously an article, much less a paper, who could quote a “Doctor Heinous” with a straight face?
Speaking of the Onion, my all-time favorite headline from it was when the McGreevey scandal first broke. “Homosexual Tearfully Admits to Being Governor of New Jersey.”