Book description
They're hard to miss at grocery stores and newsstands in America --
the colorful, heavily illustrated tabloid newspapers with headlines
promising shocking, unlikely, and sometimes impossible stories within.
Although the papers are now ubiquitous, the supermarket tabloid's
origin can be traced to one man: Generoso Pope Jr., an eccentric,
domineering chain-smoker who died of a heart attack at age sixty-one.
In The Godfather of Tabloid, Jack Vitek explores the life and
remarkable career of Pope and the founding of the most famous tabloid
of all -- the National Enquirer. Upon graduating from MIT, Pope worked
briefly for the CIA until he purchased the New York Enquirer with
dubious financial help from mob boss Frank Costello. Working
tirelessly and cultivating a mix of American journalists (some of
whom, surprisingly, were Pulitzer prize winners) and buccaneering
Brits from Fleet Street who would do anything to get a story, Pope
changed the name, format, and content of the modest weekly newspaper
until it resembled nothing America had ever seen before. At its
height, the National Enquirer boasted a circulation of more than five
million, equivalent to the numbers of the Hearst newspaper empire.
Pope measured the success of his paper by the mail it received from
readers, and eventually the volume of reader feedback was such that
the post office assigned the Enquirer offices their own zip code. Pope
was skeptical about including too much celebrity coverage in the
tabloid because he thought it wouldn't hold people's interest, and he
shied away from political stories or stances. He wanted the paper to
reflect the middlebrow tastes of America and connect with the widest
possible readership. Pope was a man of contradictions: he would fire
someone for merely disagreeing with him in a meeting (once firing an
one editor in the middle of his birthday party), and yet he spent
upwards of a million dollars a year to bring the world's tallest
Christmas tree to the Enquirer offices in Lantana, Florida, for the
enjoyment of the local citizens. Driven, tyrannical, and ruthless in
his pursuit of creating an empire, Pope changed the look and content
of supermarket tabloid media, and the industry still bears his stamp.
Grounded in interviews with many of Pope's supporters, detractors, and
associates, The Godfather of Tabloid is the first comprehensive
biography of the man who created a genre and changed the world of
publishing forever.
""Easy to read and including helpful footbotes and a
bibliography, this book will particularly interest libraries in
Florida, where Pop was an influential citizen.
Recommended."--Choice" --
Jack Vitek is an associate professor of journalism and English at
Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. For many years, he was a
professional journalist working for numerous publications, including
the Washington Daily News, the Wall Street Journal, and Newsday. He is
coauthor of Idol Rock Hudson: The True Story of an American Film Hero.
