Weekly World News, more of an entertainment publication than a newspaper, has printed its final set of wacky headlines. The Aug. 27 issue, its last, is on sale now.
Declining circulation numbers facing most newspapers these days has rocked perhaps the most outrageous of all the supermarket tabloids. Its circulation has plummeted from 1.2 million in the late 1980s down to less than 90,000, according to the Washington Post.
While some tabloids attempt to base their stories on some version of the truth, Weekly World News never even tried. Fact checking was not part of the process.
“If we get a story about a guy who thinks he’s a vampire, we take him at his word,” late editor Eddie Clontz was quoted as telling the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2004.
In addition to the challenges all print papers are experiencing (here at the Enterprise-Record we’ve turned lots of attention to our online edition; check it at www.chicoer.com), perhaps readers that made up the freaky tabloid’s core of readers have turned to gossip.
Rather than reading about “Bat Boy” and Hillary Clinton’s adoption of an alien baby, readers can get all their titillating “news” from People, Us and the like with tales of Britney, Lindsey and Paris. And sports publications that used to largely stick to the games are now full of lurid tales of dog fighting, steroids and gambling allegations. With all that, who needs Elvis sightings and tales of corn chips that look like Jesus?
Still, many of us will miss the classic headlines that have been a supermarket staple for years, like “Hog-zilla! Mutant 12-ft. pig killed in Georgia,” “Man bothered by alien telemarketers” and “Crazed dieter mistakes dwarf for chicken.”
Buzz Editor Alan Sheckter can be reached at 896-7771 or buzz@chicoer.com.
