Word: tabloid
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...neighboring bars, the Hawaiian, the Whistle Stop or the Red Lion (a pseudo pub), to swap leg- pulling tales and practice one-upmanship by inventing sidesplitter headlines. Billy Burt, editor of the Examiner, proffers the classic example of HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR as the quintessence of a tabloid art form. Balfour opts for convolution: THE TOASTER POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL or, better, THE DOG THAT SHOT ITS OWNER. All voice serious concern that unimaginative headlines -- GIRL, 11, BECOMES GRANDMOTHER -- are replacing zany eye-catchers -- CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS USED MAP PREPARED BY SPACE ALIENS -- that reflect the best work of twisted...
These are no ordinary immigrants to sunbaked Florida. They are top tabloid journalists from Fleet Street -- most of them Englishmen, Scots, Australians and Canadians -- lured to the U.S. by the inflated salaries at the Lantana- . based National Enquirer. (Starting pay for a reporter: $50,000 a year, with no experience required, except an apparent aptitude for spying on the celebrity species.) The Fleet Streeters began arriving in droves during the 1970s, enough of them to field cricket games, fill dart rooms and prompt some local eateries to include bangers and mash on their menus. Their presence in turn encouraged other...
...most frequently gossiped about reporter in Tabloid Valley is Brian Hogan, a grizzled Aussie with Peter O'Toole eyes and a seemingly infinite ; capacity to imbibe. Once a renowned master of stunt journalism ("The reporter is the catalyst for the story," explains Hogan, straight-faced), he has been reincarnated as the editor of the Get Rich News, the valley's latest contribution to supermarket racks. Hogan's favorite sidesplitter is a simple story titled "X Rays Can Be Dangerous," about an X-ray machine with loose hinges that collapsed on a patient and killed...
...scale of literary sobriety is Donald E. Westlake's sprightly Trust Me on This (Mysterious Press; 293 pages; $16.95), which satirizes the seemingly unsatirizable. After faltering in recent years, Westlake recoups in perhaps the most beguiling beheading of journalists since Evelyn Waugh's Scoop. The targets are the tabloid weeklies that feature UFO sightings, no-dieting diets and a "body in a box," that is, surreptitious photos of a dead celebrity in his casket. Rather than mock the already preposterous, Westlake explores the mentality that capable, rational people would need in order to crank out such stuff. In a particularly...
There seem to be several Raisas. Most prominent these days is the "Nemesis of Nancy." The First Ladies' little cold war has been the stuff of tabloid headlines ever since Mrs. Gorbachev upstaged Mrs. Reagan by arriving unexpectedly at the 1986 Reykjavik summit (Nancy stayed home). "I missed you in Reykjavik," Raisa said when the two met in Washington last December. Nancy replied icily, "I was told women weren't invited...