Every week, Americans rush to supermarkets or convenience stores to check out the latest trash in tabloid scandal-sheets such as the National Enquirer. We buy these scandal-sheets because they print what many of us secretly want to read about. We flock to such trash because they frequently describe the real and imagined failings of our beloved celebrities and reviled politicians alike. In a recent Presidential election, false rumors by the so-called 'Swift Boat Veterans For Truth' ensured that we were cursed with a second term of George W. Bush's reverse-Midas touch. Many other famous people have been brought down by scandal-sheet gossip, lies, rumors and half-truths. People buy scandal-sheets much more than they buy mainstream or supposedly legitimate newspapers.
Courtesy of the tabloids, we know all about Drew Barrymore's addictions, Danny 'Partridge' Bonaducci's run-ins with the law, all kinds of gossip and rumors about rich and famous actors, musicians and others, and much more information on people's private lives than we really need to know. But as long as many of us buy and crave it, such trash will always be available. (to be cont'd)
[The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and as part of my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays]
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