books:

	I Watched a Wild Hog Eat My Baby: A Colorful History of Tabloids and Their Cultural Impact Bill Sloan Prometheus Books, 2001 - 251 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Anything written about tabs a decade earlier would be woefully out-of-date. As Sloan comments, the 1990s have seen the "tabloidization" of mainstream media. The major media have usurped the tabs' turf, creating what Sloan calls an "identity crisis" among tabloid editors and reporters, who must now compete directly against major media in search of scandalous type celebrity news, whereas in the past the major media shunned such stories.

Sloan analyzes how such 1990s news stories as OJ, the death of Princess Di, and "Bill and Monica" affected news coverage by the tabloids and their mainstream competition.

There are some other good tabloid books, several written by "insiders" like Sloan, but this is the only tabloid history that's up-to-date, and relevant to today and the near future.

Author Bill Sloan was an editor at the Globe and Enquirer, and a Pulitzer-nominated reporter for the Dallas Times-Herald.

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Providing insider's insights into the strange business

We all let our eyes at least wander to tabloid newspaper headlines in the supermarket; but ever wonder who's behind them? Finally: here's an expose of the personalities who built the tabloids, with interviews by Bill Sloan providing insider's insights into the strange business. From roots of the tabs in soft-core smut to their current focus on celebrity sensationalism, pop culture is presented at its best - and most outrageous - in a zany story. I Watched A Wild Hog Eat My Baby: A Colorful History Of Tabloids And Their Cultural Impact is especially commended to the attention of students in Journalism, American Popular Culture, and anyone who has ever plucked one up while in a supermarket checkout counter.

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Where is the CIA info

"I Watched a Wild Hog EAT My Baby!!!" by Bill Sloan, reviewed by Tim
Cridland

I just speed read the new tabloid book published by Prometheus Press. I
checked it out from the LA Public Library and read most of it in one day.

The name of the book is I Watched a Wild Hog EAT My Baby!!! and it is
written by Bill Sloan, who apparently worked for a few of the tabloids in
the 70s.

There a few things that are in this book that I haven't seen elsewhere. One
is a thorough background of Generoso Pope Sr., showing his strong ties to
both the Mafia and support of Mussolini and Fascism.

In case you don't know, Pope Sr. is the father of Gene Pope Jr., founder or
the National Enquirer and inventor of the supermarket tabloid.

Sloan also verifies beyond all doubt that the National Enquirer was started
with money given or loaned by long time Pope family associate and mobster
Frank Costello.

Sloan also verifies that the Mafia influence of the National Enquirer
continued well into the 70s

Sloan doesn't give any new insight into the Pope Jr.'s CIA background. He
also seems to know little of Midnight publisher Joe Azaria's Mafia
connections, other than saying that there were reports that he had casual
contact with the Montreal Mob. In fact, there is an article from the
Montreal Gazette about Azaria where he openly admits his mob connections,
and claims to be working on a book about it. I have this article in my
files.

Sloan gives a huge amount of information about the group of tabloids that
were published in the Chicago area, of which the National Tattler is the
most remembered. Strangely, there were no connections to the Mafia or CIA
here.

on page 106 Midnight editor John Vader describes how he faked a photo for
the Midnight issue with the headline: JFK IS ALIVE ON SKORPOIS! I mention
this because the Gemstone File claims that this is actually a photo of the
kidnapped Howard Hughes. John Vader says it is staff writer on top of Monte
Royal in Montreal at sunset.

One strange thing is that Sloan makes no reference to James Randi. Randi
used to work for Midnight when he was working as a phony psychic in Montreal
nightclubs. Randi wrote and astrology column and apparently designed the
masthead for Midnight. His name is clearly seen as the artists signature on
the earliest edition of Midnight that I could find at the Quebec Library.
When I E-mailed Randi about his tabloid days, he E-mailed back saying that
it was so long ago that he hardly remembered anything. However, in an
interview with Randi in Skeptic Magazine, he was able to vividly remember
his teenage years, a time presumably before he worked at Midnight.
Prometheus Books, Sloan's publisher, also publishes several books by Randi,
making Randi's omission all the stranger.

All and all, it is a good book with lots of hard to find info and well worth
checking out from a public library.

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The horror of learning the truth

The true horror about this book was learning how The National Enquirer, Star, etc. are now not only not competitors, but all housed in the same building. Then it gets even grimmer when you read how The National Enquirer is trying to go legit...It's all so shocking and sickening. Who wants to read about death as a result of idiot guidance and ownership? Just turned my stomach and, quite frankly, made me sad. Honestly, I'd noticed for quite some time that the Star was losing its edge and this book explained why. It's a case of "fixing something that ain't broke." The owner and his team are trying to change what the rest of the media is trying to copy. Shadow-boxing with what?

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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