Weekly World News
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The Weekly World News (WWN) is a tabloid newspaper published by American Media. It combines wire reports of strange news with in-house writings and columns.
Description
The WWN claims it always prints the truth (typical slogan: "Nothing but the truth: The Weekly World News!"). So many of the stories are so obviously fake it seems these claims are intended as a joke. It is worth noting that while the tabloid's main rival The Sun carried a fine print disclaimer stating that "the reader should suspend belief for the sake of enjoyment", the WWN has never let on about the accuracy of its stories. In recent years, The Sun has moved more towards articles on health and miracle cures, and strange-but-true stories, leaving the WWN alone in its unique niche. The WWN has perhaps grown even more farcical and outlandish in the 2000s.
When most of the supermarket tabloids were acquired by Fleet Street publishers they switched to celebrity gossip, but the Weekly World News remains devoted to weirdness. The WWN is also unique in that it is printed entirely in black and white. Like most of the tabloids in the US, the Weekly World News is published in Boca Raton, Florida. Its longtime editor was Eddie Clontz, who left the paper in 2001 and died in 2004.[1] (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/7826741.htm)
Features
Regular columns include Ed Anger (opinion), Dotti Primrose (advice) and Serena and Sonya Sabak (psychic).
Semi-regular stories follow the progress of Bat Boy, the half-bat, half-boy superhero; and P'lod, an extraterrestrial who became involved in Earth politics and had an affair with Hillary Clinton. Other recurring themes include the oncoming great depression/apocalypse, and newly found lost prophecies. A new addition is cartoonist Peter Bagge's "Adventures of Batboy".
Likewise, throughout 2003, just prior to the capture of Saddam Hussein, and persisting after his capture, WWN ran a series of articles on an alleged (and obviously made-up) homosexual romance between Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
The "couple" apparently had a steamy, sensual affair, before a same-sex wedding was performed, with Hussein as the bride and bin Laden as the groom. Later, they traveled the globe, ending up in France. They adopted a shaved ape that posed as a human child. After an argument, Hussein left for Iraq to be comforted in his home town Tikrit by family and friends, and hid in the spider hole until Bat Boy discovered him.
More recently, WWN ran a story claiming that George W. Bush was openly campaigning to become the next Pope.
WWN has also produced series of stories on alien abductions, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, and time travel. (In one of the latest, Iraq is revealed to possess a time tunnel capable of facilitating time travel.)
The WWN is credited with starting the wave of Elvis sightings in the early 1990s with a series of articles claiming that Elvis Presley had faked his death and had recently emerged from years of seclusion to prepare for a comeback. Obviously altered photos purported to show a gray-haired balding Elvis sneaking into a movie theater and coming out of a Burger King restaurant. When the US Postal Service conducted a poll to determine the design of the Elvis commemorative postage stamp, the WWN conducted its own poll pitting the USPS' 1950s Elvis and 1970s Elvis versus their own 1990s Elvis. The WWN's Elvis naturally won.
External links
- Weekly World News (http://www.weeklyworldnews.com)