| They're impossible to miss at grocery stores and newsstands in America:
colorful, heavily illustrated tabloid newspapers with headlines promising
shocking, unlikely, and sometimes impossible stories within. Although ubiquitous
now, the supermarket tabloid's origin can be traced to one man: Generoso Pope
Jr. (1921-1988), an eccentric, domineering chain-smoker who died of a heart
attack at the age of sixty-one. In The Godfather of Tabloid, Jack Vitek explores the life and career of Pope and
the founding of the mother of all tabloids, the National Enquirer.
Upon graduating from MIT, Pope worked briefly for the CIA until he purchased
the New York Enquirer with
dubious financial help from mob boss Frank Costello. Working with American
journalists and Brits from Fleet Street, Pope changed the name, format, and
content of the modest weekly newspaper until it resembled nothing America had
seen before. Grounded in interviews with Pope and his detractors and associates,
The Godfather of Tabloid
is the first
comprehensive look at the life of a man who created a newspaper genre and
changed the world of publishing forever.
Jack Vitek is an associate professor of journalism and
English at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. For many years, he was a
professional journalist working for numerous publications, including the
Washington Daily News, the Wall Street Journal, and
Newsday. He is coauthor of Idol Rock Hudson: The
True Story of an American Film Hero.
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