Tabloid had Tiger Woods by the tail two years ago but buried the story.
Until now, the Tiger Woods scandal has lacked that element of pulp sordidness that interests us. Sure, there were multiple dalliances with a porn actress, but no grand scams or hidden bodies. All that changed yesterday when The Wall Street Journal published an article claiming that The National Enquirer had photographic proof of Tiger Woods’ infidelity back in 2007 and traded it for an exclusive interview for its sister publication Men’s Fitness. This is simply not the way a true tabloid is supposed to behave. A true tabloid would publish a story about Woods being an alien hybrid who became great at golf from playing in zero gravity, so quashing a blockbuster about history’s greatest golfer tomcattin’ around is a major transgression of tabloid ethic— uh, ethiclessness— er, of a tabloid’s presumed (and indeed required) ethical bankruptcy. We’re all used to the failings of the mainstream press, but when muckraking tabloids can’t live up to even nonexistent ethical requirements the end times are truly near. We suppose this sad failure by The National Enquirer is a testament to the sheer power of Tiger Woods. After all, The Enquirer cheerfully outed John Edwards’ affair as blithely as if reporting another celebrity wedding. We’re talking about a U.S. Senator who could have presumably had Homeland Security put the entire Enquirer editorial staff on a barge to Guantánamo. But these hardnosed news hawks were cowed by a golfer. We said earlier in the week that the (now failed) Copenhagen talks should be helmed by prostitutes. We take that back. With the kind of power Tiger has, we should have sent him into the negotiating chamber with a sand wedge. Right now ice shelves would be unfracturing, snows would be reaccumulating on Kilimanjaro, and we’d all be hearing a loud hissing noise from excess CO2 venting into space. We’d love to be that powerful for a day. Know what we’d do? After stopping global warming and putting a curse on the Boston Red Sox, we’d give the power away to a lowly assistant whose only job would be to periodically remind us that, in this day and age, recognizable and respected people who fuck around will always get caught. And by “remind,” we mean he’d wear a Bill Clinton mask and squeeze our nuts with vice grips while slapping us in the face.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot. 1912—Pravda Is Founded
The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country's leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid. 1983—Hitler's Diaries Found
The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess's flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.
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