Today's Absolutely Must Read Is In The New York Times

Oh my. Not a tawdry tale of the National Enquirer. Instead, acknowledging praise for the Nat Enq in pursuing the John Edward story, up to and including a possible Pulitzer. And then it gets better.

A quick aside, mainstream journalists I talked to back during the Natalee Holloway story actually praised the Nat Enq for its dogged determination and dedication to getting legit sources for some stories when they wanted to do more than martians landing fodder.

Anyway, word is they are considering opening a Washington, DC bureau. Can you imagine anything more capable of creating fear and loathing inside the beltway than that? And the populist mantra the editor invokes jibes nicely with political themes currently playing out across the country. To suggest a Nat Enq presence in DC might alter a political career path, or two, would be an understatement, I do believe.

“It still shows the reader that wealthy people, rich people, people who they may admire — when you take away the money, have the same types of problems that they have in real life,” he said.

Pulling together reporters to dig into the (Edwards) rumor, Mr. Levine began something that once seemed unthinkable: not only the downfall of a presidential candidate with a meticulous image, but, for the sensational tabloid, something resembling respectability.

By being the first and, largely, the only publication pursuing the Edwards story through his denials of the affair and of fathering a child out of wedlock, The Enquirer is under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, and it has strong support for its bid from other journalists. The success has Mr. Levine considering opening a Washington bureau to look for more dirt among politicians.

It’s a curious time for The Enquirer to be soaring. Its parent company, American Media, nearly went bankrupt last year.

Comments

[physics geek]

So it turns out that Agent K was right in Men In Black: the National Enquirer DOES have the finest investigative journalism reporters around.

[Amused Observer]

Not to take away from the National Enquirer's props for bringing Edwards into the bright light of the sunshine but it speaks volumes that it took a trashy tabloid to do the job that the traditional media abdicated on. A less charitable assessment would use the word collaborated instead of abdicated.

I'm sure in some way we will all be poorer when the last of the newsprint dinasaurs flounders into a tarpit it can't escape from and slowly expires. But I'll happily pay the price and piss on their collective liberal lying grave.