Dear Readers:
Dr. Ink was born in New York City back in the days when you could buy the News, the Mirror, the Times, the Herald Tribune, the Journal American, and the World Telegram and Sun. If that didn’t satisfy your newspaper yen, you could also buy Newsday and the Wall Street Journal.
Doc loved the tabloids the best. He loved the big photos, the crime scandals, the celebrity gossip, the back-page sports coverage, and, most of all, the headlines. So he felt warm all over during a chilly visit to New York when he confronted this headline on the cover of the New York Post: Axis of Weasel: Germany and France Wimp out on Iraq
Here’s the lead: “In a sharp rebuke aimed at France and Germany, Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday lashed out at countries that want to duck a showdown with Iraq, saying America will have plenty of friends in the foxhole without them.” Cliches aside, that’s a fairly straight news lead under a headline that could go with an editorial cartoon.
No one can beat the tabs for headlines. In the same issue: Jail firm eyes deal to ID ‘bribery’ pols. That may constitute a world record for fitting the most words into the smallest space.
Then there’s: ‘Moneyline’ of Fire, with this subhead: Lou Dobbs backs wife in gun goof
And check out this lead: “Pistol packing Debi Dobbs didn’t know she was carrying heat in her handbag when she headed to Newark Airport with her twins in tow to take a flight to Florida, says her hubby, CNN ‘Moneyline’ host Lou Dobbs.” If only she had been wearing “stiletto heels.”
Why can’t regular newspapers be as much fun to read as the tabs? And what are your favorite tabloid headlines?
