The loathsome tabloid caper

Editor: The following column ran in the Jan. 4, 2007, Hungry Horse News.

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Many headline writers on big daily newspaper apparently don’t read the stories. And the bigger the newspaper, the more apt it is to have headlines not matching the story’s content.

A typical example was in a recent western daily. The big black headline carried a Boston dateline and said, “Animals Out of Control.” I skipped everything else on that page so I could read about animals running riot across the New England landscape.

I imagined them threatening human lives and destroying property, like scenes from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. No such luck. A more accurate headline would have been, “Gulls and Monkeys Over Producing.” As it turns out, the story was very interesting and I’m glad I read it, but still felt irritated by the misleading head.

There are other kinds of headlines which seem like a deliberate lie. Got one right here. This one says “Five Die in Utah’s Hunting Opener.” My initial reaction was, “Gosh! There must be a lot of careless shooters in Utah.” Then I read the story. Only one of those “victims” died from a gunshot wound, and that was not from an actual hunting accident but rather the result of a drunken argument.

The others met death from forms of bad luck, maybe not quite as spectacular as in a gun fight but just as permanent. A woman had a heart attack. One man drove his pickup over a high bank, and another rolled his all-terrain-vehicle on a steep side hill. The fifth victim was hit by lightning. Not one incident involved careless hunting, but anti-hunting factions must have loved the headline writer’s poor choice of words.

The champion phony headline writers work for the National Enquirer and those other tabloids you see at supermarket counters. They’ll have a headline, “What Man is Liz Taylor Secretly Seeing?” Examine the rag and he turns out to be her new hairdresser. Of course, they come up with an endless string of stories and headlines every week that just defy you to not buy that issue. It’s tough resisting such front page lures as, “Baby Raised by Wild Pigs,” “First Graders Hire Hit Man to Get Teacher,” “Dallas Star Claims to Be Virgin” or “Doctor Performs Own Sex Change Operation.”

For years, I courageously resisted temptation and stuck to more reputable periodicals, but last month in a moment of pure weakness, I bought a copy of a far out tab — way beyond the Enquirer. It had stories like “New Formula Triples Your Sex Life” and “How to Become a Millionaire in 60 Days.” The clerk who took my money started to say something then thought better of it. I remember thinking, “Gee! I hope she doesn’t know me.”

At home, Iris said, “What are you doing with that kind of trash? Suppose word got out that the trusted news director of Montana’s ‘most powerful’ radio station was reading the sex, sin and scandal tabloids? And what about my sewing club? If they saw that in this house, I’d be permanently humiliated.”

I told Iris I only bought the stupid thing so I could make fun of it on the air, like Jim Bohannan does for Mutual Radio, and she said that was fine as long as I got it out of the house before sun down. I had to go to the station anyway, so I just moved up my departure time.

After writing on the cover “This trash was mailed to me by a listener,” I left the loathsome tabloid tucked under a file basket on my desk. The next morning when I got to work it was gone, but not wanting to cause embarrassment to someone who might not be able to control their kinky and disgraceful reading habits, I didn’t mention the loss to anyone.

I’m still very curious about who stole my tabloid, and I figure it should be easy to figure out who it is. I’m simply watching for the first employee who turns into a millionaire — and seems to be looking overly haggard.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.