The NYT's David Carr chats with David Perel, editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, basking after a "win" by exposing the love child of former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards.
It should be pointed out: the National Enquirer gets plenty wrong. Last week, the paper paid out an undisclosed sum to a woman they suggested had borne a child by Ted Kennedy; it missed on Gary Condit and on Elizabeth Smart, as well.
Still, at a time when newspapers are cutting back in big whacks and chaining the remaining reporters they employ to their screens to feed all manner of deadlines and blogs, the National Enquirer puts reporters on the streets — in between tracking Kelly Ripa’s lack of body fat — and keeps them there.
“What we do harkens back to a golden age when newsrooms were full of people who would knock on doors and not take no for an answer,” Mr. Perel said. “A lot of organizations can’t afford to do it or seem to have lost their appetite for it.”
Sometimes, it works. The National Enquirer smoked out Jesse Jackson’s out-of-wedlock child, advanced the Clinton-Lewinsky story in significant ways, and all but led the O.J. coverage for a time.
“We put what I call a ‘ghost team’ on this, which is designed to observe and not be seen, until we had enough information to approach people and start asking questions,” Mr. Perel said. And while stalking subjects and sleeping in cars does not sound like a great way to spend a week, in the Edwards story, it yielded what is turning out to be a very important story, with a report last Friday in The New York Times that there may have been an orchestrated cover-up of the affair.
However, the Enquirer, like most other publications, isn't immune to the economic forces buffeting the wider industry.
Like any journalism, what the Enquirer does costs money — the Edwards investigation took nine months — and that’s in short supply at the headquarters of American Media. The company’s revenue for the quarter ended June 30 was $119 million, down 2 percent. Operating income was off slightly at $26 million and over all, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were down 6 percent.
The parent company also has close to $1 billion in debt hanging over its head. Analysts say there are no easy options for the company, so a hard rain is likely gonna fall.
Despite occasional scoops, the Enquirer has lost about one-third of its circulation in the past four years, the column said.
So even high-achieving tabloid journalism (of a type) isn't enough to guarantee economic success? Brrrr.