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Weekly World News: Journalism's best bargain

By Greg Parker
Daily Arts Writer

Admit it. You've picked one up in the check-out line at Meijer, Kroger or perhaps Wal-Mart. It's only $1.09, and it's chock full of 47 pages of highly informative, intelligent, well-written, fact-filled articles with subjects ranging from "potty-trained toads" to "dinosaurs on Mars." It contains the "WORLD'S BIGGEST CROSSWORD," horoscopes and America's favorite right wing-reactionary columnist, Ed Anger.

Of course, this could only describe one publication -- the Weekly World News. It's quite possibly the only periodical in the world that can place an article proclaiming the "world's first head-to-body transplant" on Page 6. The "dinosaurs on Mars" story only made Page 42. I can only imagine what makes front page news by Weekly World News standards --maybe the apocalypse would be Page 2, at best. Appearance of the antichrist, however, is definitely page three material, while "Alien endorses Clinton" has got to make the cover.

The Weekly World News is perhaps journalism's best bargain. At a dollar, the magazine provides "health secrets your doctors don't want you to know" and valuable information like "cigarettes save you from Parkinson's disease." Page 5 says that men fall in love faster than women. What a deal.

The Weekly World News has a great grip on world affairs. In a September issue, an article claimed that "high-level government officials" proposed making Mexico a state in order to solve the immigration "crisis." According to the article, all Mexicans did was come into our country and eat tacos, drink tequila, pass out and collect welfare -- yes, the article really said "eat tacos." Anyway, the general idea was that making Mexico a state would allow the United States to tax the Mexicans, and thus solve national immigration "crisis." How insightful -- or, rather, inciteful.

On domestic issues, though, the WWN is unparalleled. It covers the tragedy of neglected children with articles like, "Little girl, 7, sues for her mother's love!" I was nearly brought to tears with this one. How the WWN was so able to capture the essence of the issue, I'll never know.

The writing is definitely Pulitzer material. An example: "DURANGO, MEXICO -- A man choked to death when a Mexican jumping bean jumped into his mouth and lodged in his windpipe!" Beautiful. The prose is simple, minimal and coherent. The exclamation point lets the reader know that, hey, this is important news. The parallelism of the word "jump" further attests to the beauty of the passage. I think The New York Times could take a few lessons from just this sample of Weekly World News writing.

I'd love to intern at the Weekly World News. I sent my cover letter and resume to them weeks ago -- I want to learn from the best. I want to cover the paranormal beat. I can just imagine working for the paranormal editor. Maybe he or she would assign me to investigate a feline possession, or possibly I could go to Loch Ness, to see the Nessie. I'd want to learn to use words like "hellcat" and phrases like, "Cucumber killer captured!" I guess I can only dream.

But the dream is, in reality, a nightmare. On a more serious note, what I find most frightening about the WWN is the simple fact that it exists. Does anyone actually believe this rubbish? Half of these stories aren't suitable as rejected B-movie plots. One seriously has to question any publication that has a right wing fascist, a psychic and "Hollywood's Answer Girl" as columnists -- those writers make the Weekly World News seem more like the National Review meets "Psychic Friends Network." The result is just as horrible as it sounds.

The photographs look like they were taken with a Kodak Disc camera, and the magazine's layout is basically summed up as a nauseating amount of sans serif headlines, boldface and exclamation points. As if the reader needs to be reminded of the exclamatory nature of "Woman gored to death in bathroom by 2,000-lb. bull!"

It doesn't surprise me that the Weekly World News is published, and it surprises me even less that people actually believe its contents. In actuality, it really isn't much worse than a talk show. Which brings me to the assertion that the same people who watch talk shows are the same people who purchase the WWN. I know in my case that this is true -- I watch (read: enjoy) talk shows, and I purchase, and diligently digest from cover to cover, the Weekly World News.