You always knew it was just a trashy tabloid. Crazy-ass stories. Ridiculous gossip. Nosy and annoying. Always there at the check-out counter in every grocery or pharmacy you've ever been in. You kind of thought it was just stupid reading for stupid people. Noisy, annoying, but basically harmless.
Nope. Not really. As Jeff Bezos has revealed (see previous post), The National Enquirer's business model was/is blackmail! “The threats, the blackmail, that’s their business model,” one former National Enquirer staffer told The Daily Beast. All part of the fame & shame culture. It would not be a tragedy if this tabloid was burned to a crisp and relegated to the trash-heap!