NEWS YOU CAN USE:

An alien ate my brain (Justin Mitchell, 6/03/04, Asia Times)

Odds are you've seen my work, been momentarily fascinated with it, and probably furtively perused it while simultaneously making sure that no one saw you reading it.

It's available at virtually every supermarket checkout stand in the United States, is distributed widely in Canada and the United Kingdom, and I've heard rumors there are copies in Hong Kong. It's one creaky, crooked step above pornography and about 49 flights down from the likes of The New York Times. The low-budget black-and-white layout resembles a ransom note, and its headlines scream things such as, "I keep Mom's ashes in the vacuum cleaner", "Live mermaid found in tuna can" and "Bible prophecies: Satanic terror the government doesn't want you to see!"

It's the Weekly World News.

"Who writes this stuff?" you may have asked. Well, I did after an otherwise respectable career in "straight" journalism. You may have seen my double opus: "Saddam statue sheds mystery tears" and "Saddam's doubles looking for new jobs". Or perhaps the "mermaid in the tuna can" exclusive and several similar fishy follow-ups, until the editor at the time declared in a memo to the staff titled "The Last Mermaid" that, "In this week's issue of WWN, you will see a mermaid on page 3. This will be the last mermaid you see in the pages of WWN for a while. We will also be banning vampires, zombies, elves, leprechauns, genies, witches, werewolves and most other FANTASY FIGURES."

Clearly, even the Weekly World News has standards...

It was kind of nice, in the depressing wake of 9-11, to pick up the WWN and read about how Saddam and Osama were gay lovers trying to adopt a child. Back when we had a patriotic press you could have gotten such ridicule and villification in real papers.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 6, 2004 12:42 PM