I Watched a Wild Hog Eat My Baby: A Colorful History of Tabloids and Their Cultural Impact

by Bill Sloan

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573929026
• ISBN13: 9781573929028
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 251 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Most current, and comprehensive, history of tabloids

This extensively-researched history of American tabloids was released in 2001, the only post-1999 tabloid book so far. That's relevant, because since 1999 all major tabloids (Enquirer, Star, Globe, Examiner, Mira, Sun, Weekly World News) have been under single ownership. Some tabloid critics lament that this has undermined the tabloids' traditional competitiveness, and significantly altered their editorial policies and news coverage.Anything written about tabs a decade earlier would be woefully out-of-date.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.

Fascinating and entertaining--and lots of inside stuff.

I liked this book a lot. It's not for most readers of the tabloids--it's for intelligent readers who want to know just how the tabs got started, and how they've influenced our entire culture. The book lives up to its subtitle--it's a colorful and fascinating story, what with the Mafia and Rupert Murdoch involved, and all the celebrities like Liz and Jackie and OJ who have been featured frequently over the years. But for me the most fascinating character was Generoso Pope, the original publisher of the Enquirer. He had Mafia connections and was also a former CIA agent. A character right out of a movie. The chapters on him were worth the price of the book, at least to me. Mr. Sloan was a writer and editor for some of the tabs, and he knows the inside story. He's also a very good writer.And yes, the book does tell you how they come up with those crazy headlines.

Do Enquiring minds really want to know?

Unequivocally YES! And that is why you MUST read this book!! After all, who knew that the National Enquirer was originally owned by a Pope? And financed by a Mafia kingpin? Hey, Bill Sloan knows and YOU will too, after reading this book.If research were gold, this book would be Ft. Knox! There is more research here than you can shake a stick at--but who'd want to? You'll be too busy reading! After all, you simply must know what happened when 95 million tons of oatmeal exploded in Omaha. (It was NOT a pretty site!) Or when a wild hog actually did eat a....but that's going TOO far."Well written" is putting it mildly. "Couldn't put it down" is an understatement. "The best bathroom book since Peyton Place" doesn't give it enough credit. "Juicy" is only slightly correct. So what do you do if you own the biggest collection of supermarket tabloids on the planet? BILL SLOAN KNEW!! If you love those "I SLEPT WITH A SPACE ALIEN AND GOT RICH TELLING ABOUT IT" or "BIGFOOT WAS MY NANNY" kinds of articles, you'll love this book. Heck, you'll love it even if you DON'T like `em because it's so full of interesting stories and characters!! If you read only one book this year...you'll have a very slow year. But why not make it "I WATCHED A WILD HOG EAT MY BABY"?

Wild Hogs & Wild Editors

"Enquiring Minds" who want the true inside scoop on the supermarket tabloids and the strange people who publish them can find it all in Bill Sloan's "I Watched A Wild Hog Eat My Baby".There have been perhaps a half dozen books and any number of articles claiming to reveal the inner workings of the tabs. All, however, have been written by writers from the outside looking in, writers with little actual experience at the tabs trying to cash in for a quick buck, or writers with axes to grind - in most instances, all three. Sloan, however, has prowled the inner sanctums of all the tabs. He has been the editor of the Globe and the National Tattler, top writer with the National Enquirer and close friends of editors, writers and reporters at the Star, Weekly World News, the National Examiner and the Sun. His connection with the tabloids goes back more than 30 years.What's more, Sloan himself is a writer of national reputation, with dozens of mainstream books and articles, both fiction and non-fiction. As a professional journalist, he was a Pulitzer Prize nominee while an investigative reporter with the Dallas Times Herald. Despite its rather bizarre title, Sloan's book is the definitive history of the supermarket tabloids over the last 30 years. He does not concentrate on the weird stories the tabs are famous for, but on the people who produced what is, arguably, a major phenomena of American journalism. The book is briming with anecdotes, first person quotes and insights into the thinking of the sometimes eccentric Gene Pope, the godfather of the supermarket tabs, Mike Rosenblum, his most successful imitator, and Ian Calder, who largely responsible for the tabs' shift to celebrity-hounding after 1975.If there is any criticism of Sloan's coverage of the early history of the Enquirer and supermarket tabloids, it's his failure to give more ateention to Dino Gallo, Nat Chrzan, Mel Snyder, Ted Mutch and Carl Grothmann, who all played major roles in Pope's shift from carnage to an almost respectable, near conventional format between 1969 to 1975. Curiously, this was the era during which the Enquirer enjoyed a soaring circulation, going from less than a million to five million. In the final chapter, Sloan speculates on the future of the tabloids, beleaguered by falling circulation, televisions shows, some of which have gone where even tabs fear to go, and the new Barons of Baloney, the bean counters who would be Pope.

sensational! shocking details inside!

Author Bill Sloan takes us through the dark, mysterious world of tabloid journalism, not with a candle but a floodlight. From the old penny press to New York's yellow journals; from gory rags to the screaming celebrity headlines at today's supermarket checkout counters, it's a fascinating journey that tells us as much about ourselves as it does about the wild and wacky cast of characters who gave us those infamous "scandal sheets." Well written, funny (even hilarious) this book not only entertains but goes about the serious business of analyzing the evolution of so-called "popular journalism" and its influence on today's TV news, newspapers and magazines. Must reading for anyone involved in the news business and certainly for everyone who has ever picked up a tabloid at a checkout counter and wondered, "could this possibly be true?" Don't buy this book to read yourself to sleep. You'll be up all night.