Comments on: Extra!

By: Forget the Wall Street Journal « The Opinion Mill

Forget the Wall Street Journal « The Opinion Mill — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 03:13:37 +0000

[...] 26th, 2007 Here’s the newspaper Rupert Murdoch should buy. And it needs his help! Posted by stevenhart Filed in [...]

By: asm

asm — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:24:54 +0000

I second 16.

It would have been interesting what type of videos the Weekly World News would feature. I am told that in the list of the top ten most watched videos on the Internet are the “Exploding whale” ensemble production and the esteemable “John West Salmon” documentary, also known as the “Man fights bear” video. I have no doubt that WWN videos would take over the Internet, not the least checkout pages of online retailers everywhere.

By: Jon H

Jon H — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:21:34 +0000

Why don’t they just move it to the web?

By: Xanthippas

Xanthippas — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:59:12 +0000

Letting my guard down, I mentioned that I was a fan of the WWN, and asked whether he’d had any interesting cases with them. He said he hadn’t, pointing out that their stories are so ridiculous they are probably libel-proof. Needless to say, I didn’t get an offer.

That and you probably don’t have to worry when most of your libelous statements are made about hillbilly zombies, werewolves, aliens, man-bats and Satan. Were one of them to bring suit, we’d probably have a lot more to talk about than whether they were actually slandered.

By: ~~~~

~~~~ — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:54:18 +0000

But, P. O’Neill, Batboy endorsed Gore!

By: Spoon

Spoon — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:37:40 +0000

Don’t forget that the WWN said they wouldn’t hire Jayson Blair because he had a lot to learn about journalistic integrity. (It’s somewhere in the Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me news archives …)

By: P O'Neill

P O'Neill — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 15:03:29 +0000

WWN is a bit player in why the Washington press corps loved that joker George Bush compared to that awful man Al Gore who kept talking about the earth and lock boxes and stuff. The rest is history.

By: greensmile

greensmile — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:38:42 +0000

The World Weekly News has only itself to blame: they have fallen behind the times. That smart set who must read a horoscope while standing in line to buy their Tater-Tots and cheese curls have moved on from aliens to politicians. And even for that that demographic bastion of Republican Values, Bush has lost his mojo : blood in the water attracts these discerning readers.

By: rea

rea — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:58:07 +0000

The WWN was a step beyond the other tabloids

It was published by the same company that publishes the Star and National Enquirer, and of course, was the victim of an anthrax terrorist attack in ‘01

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:03:58 +0000

Serena Sabak, America’s Sexiest Psychic, presumably saw this coming and got a job elsewhere.

By: The Penultimate Word » What am I going to read in the checkout line?

The Penultimate Word » What am I going to read in the checkout line? — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:50:44 +0000

[...] The Weekly World News is going out of business [...]

By: JP Stormcrow

JP Stormcrow — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:57:34 +0000

Your post prompted me to read some background on WWN, and I must say that I did not realize the degree to which they went beyond many of the other tabloids and were consciously running something close to The Onion – or maybe the WWF is a better analogy. For instance long-time comics writer Paul Kupperberg had joined not too long ago and penned things like WHY MOSES WANDERED IN THE DESERT FOR FORTY YEARS: He Lost the Map! 

“A parchment map was found in a sealed urn not far from the remains of an Egyptian chariot,” said Rabbi Schmotkin-Fisher. “We surmise that Moses dropped it in the rush to get across the Red Sea before the parted waters came back together.

“It was etched by I Am’s own flaming finger, plainly mapping the way to the Promised Land. Remarkably, had they followed the Lord’s route, the trek would have taken the Israelites about a month, tops.”

Another interesting tidbit – apparently it was started in 1979 to make use of the remaining black and white presses when the Enquirer moved to color.

Oh, and THE RUSSIANS HAVE JFK’S BRAIN!!

By: DavidS

DavidS — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 02:44:47 +0000

Oh, no, say it ain’t so! The WWN was a step beyond the other tabloids, dedicated to finding news that believers in Bigfoot and pyramid power would find shocking.

I think my favorite headline was “Study finds 60% of Shamans not real Witch Doctors!”

By: eric

eric — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:40:35 +0000

I once interviewed for a job at a law firm that represents American Media, Inc., parent corporation of the WWN, National Enquirer, and other fine publications. The partner in charge of their media practice was telling me about some of the interesting defamation defense cases he’d handled on behalf of the Enquirer. Letting my guard down, I mentioned that I was a fan of the WWN, and asked whether he’d had any interesting cases with them. He said he hadn’t, pointing out that their stories are so ridiculous they are probably libel-proof. Needless to say, I didn’t get an offer.

By: Xanthippas

Xanthippas — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:25:55 +0000

I can certainly think of publications that are more deserving of this fate. I don’t know what the editors of the WWN thought of the invasion of Iraq, but surely they did less harm than some more “credible” papers.