Posts tagged as Tabloid Media
'Daily News' Endorses Prison Rape
My very, very favorite kind of American media article is the one about how prisons in other countries just don't have enough rape. These come out quite frequently! Today the Daily News adds the latest to this genre: it's all upset about how Norway's Halden Prison, where horrible, horrible person Anders Breivik may be held, isn't dank and prisoney enough for American tastes. (So this genre is sort of the opposite of the French articles about how awful the American perp walk is.) "Anders Behring Breivik won't fear the showers because every prisoner has a private bathroom," is how the Daily News is pimping this on their front page. ALSO DID YOU HEAR THEY HAVE TVS??? What's next, are they going to bring country music stars in to entertain the prisoners?
Scandals and Aftermaths
Delightful New York Post harridan Andrea Peyser does not disappoint today, after her bravura performance of wife-related questions at Anthony Weiner's press conference yesterday: "The gorgeous and furious Internet cuckold Huma Abedin refused yesterday to stand by her man. She did not show up to walk the plank of public humiliation, the way doormat Silda did for her whoremonger husband, Eliot Spitzer." READ MORE
Tabloid Unveils Handy 9/11 Body Part Map! (And We Improved It)
The New York Post goes big on 9/10 glory with this map that explains where all the human remains were found downtown on 9/11. This isn't just a public service-it's also an argument about the appropriateness of having religious and community centers located downtown. Well we made their map better. Human remains: YOU'RE SHOPPING IN IT. You're BOXING IN IT. You're DRINKING IN IT and ATTENDING CUNY IN IT and you're GOLDMAN SACHSING IN IT.
Very Recent History: The Scandal Sheet Proto-Blog Empire of Stephen G. Clow
On May 6, 1924, the New York Times announced: "'BREVITIES' OWNERS INDICTED FOR FRAUD." Broadway Brevities and Society Gossip, published between 1916-1924, belonged to Stephen G. Clow, a native Canadian who traveled down south to become proprietor of one of the shadiest gossip magazines of New York City. The trial of Clow and his partners lasted until January 30, 1925 and was deemed as the "greatest show on earth" by the New York Sunday News. The result: Clow was fined $6000 and sentenced to six years in federal prison in Atlanta. READ MORE
When Science Stories Go Crazy: "Desperate Addicts Inject Others’ Blood"!
It is very easy to write a bad science story. It is tantalizingly easy.¹ Often that is because writing a nuanced story requires a level of scientific explanation that will far exceed a reader's patience and a newspaper's wordcount. It's also easy because reporters let those folks who are stuck churning out releases for journals and universities do the hard work. There are whole sites devoted to these releases and they are superb. There are unintentionally hilarious headlines ("Double-teaming a whole-genome hunt") and more quantum-physics-related superlatives than you can shake a stick at. They are also full of puns ("Engineering could give reconstructive surgery a facelift"), so there's that too. It's the job of the press release writer to suck the reporter in-and it's the job of the reporter to be mildly entertained by the puns (and impressed by the ability of the writer to summarize an excessively complex story) and then factcheck it, gather some reaction quotes and send it off to the boss. Problem is, it's tricky. READ MORE
TMZ and Michael Jackson: The World Won't Listen
Not only will we not be able to see Sasha Baron Cohen's "interview" with Latoya Jackson in Bruno, and not only will we never find out what "stage move" he was feverishly creating "to succeed his famous 'moonwalk,'" (crueler Awl staffers than I suggest "the Demerol flop"), there are other, sadder concerns. Like, when will America learn to respect TMZ? READ MORE
What If Britney Were Topless And No One Cared?
It is a bad sign for your stardom, and your sense of place in the cultural moment, when you are a major tabloid pop star and you whip out your breasts for your new video and the Internet doesn't explode. READ MORE
