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A guided tour through the National Enquirer's checkered history.

America's premier scandal sheet occupies a strange place in our media landscape. The National Enquirer doesn't compete with newspapers like The New York Times or newsweeklies like Time or NEWSWEEK, but with celebrity magazines like People, Us Weekly and OK! It uses methods scorned by the mainstream media--rifling through trash cans, stalking subjects and, most of all, paying for information. Yet the Enquirer lands too many big scoops for the mainstream media to ignore--or, more accurately, that they ignore at their peril. (The Enquirer broke the news of John Edwards's affair with a former campaign aide months before his televised mea culpa.) Keep clicking for a photographic tour through the paper's varied history-from its blood-and-gore roots in the late 1950s, through its reinvention as a purveyor of gee-whiz journalism in the '70s, to today's celebrity scandal.

 
 
The Weekly Obsession

The 'Weekly Obsession' is a new video series dissecting the issues that dominate our 24/7 news cycle

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Sum Total

Behind every statistic, there's a good story. A look at how facts and figures can add up to something greater than themselves.

7 Things

In this series, NEWSWEEK interviews the artists, celebrities, musicians and newsmakers that fascinate us. In their own words, cultural icons get real about their art, their passions and life on the A-list. (Or B-list, as the case may be.)

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Member Comments

  • Posted By: JEZZY @ 12/15/2008 8:49:30 PM

    I CALL TABLOIDS ADULT COMIC BOOKS.I READ NEWSWEEK AS WELL AS OTHER WEEKLY PERIODICALS. I BELIEVE IT IS IMPORTANT TO BE WELL INFORMED.HOWEVER,THERE ARE TIMES WHEN YOU NEED TO CHECK ON BRITNEY'S MENTAL HEALTH,WHICH ACTRESS HAS THE LATEST EATING DISORDER,AND CAMILLA'S DRINKING PROBLEM TO GET YOUR MIND OFF 8 YEARS OF DUBYA. THEY DID GET THE SCOOP ON JOHN EDWARDS.

  • Posted By: mass8bob @ 09/26/2008 11:28:31 PM

    Yes, tabloid and many 'skin' magazines and other socially destructive publications are not only in the offices of our 'professional' offices, but on the magazine tables in our homes, at all economic and social levels because they are mailed [in many instances] free to people who would not admit to, or desire to PAY for such visual images where children and others who can be damaged by some of these very publications, may chance to wander. Sorry about that, mabob

  • Posted By: marianconn @ 09/26/2008 9:08:55 AM

    I love the tabloids....! I own a beauty/barber shop and have tabloids all over the place. Everyone loves them, yet they feel the need to explain that they wouldn't buy trash like that....Yet they watch 'neteork (news)' on television through hundreds of commercials.

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