End of an Era: "Weekly World News" Shuts Down

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While many of you read about the Iraq war in The Washington Post, or learn about the juiciest celebrity gossip in the latest issue of Us Weekly, some of us prefer to spend our time reading headlines like "WOMAN MARRIES BIGFOOT!" and "ELVIS ALIVE AND LIVING IN UTAH!" Sadly, those days are coming to a close.

Weekly World News, the self-billed "World's Only Reliable Newspaper" is stopping publication after almost 30 years, effective next month.

Publisher American Media Inc. said on Tuesday it will stop printing the Weekly World News, which for 28 years gleefully chronicled the exploits of alien babies, animal-human hybrids and dead celebrities.

The company said in a brief statement it would end the print version of the tabloid newspaper next month but would maintain the online version.
Weekly World News is most famous for breaking the story of the enigmatic Bat Boy. The paper published many of his "exploits," including his daring escape from the scientists who captured him in 1992 and his recruitment by the US government to find Osama Bin Laden. His story even became an off-Broadway musical.

American Media, who also publishes the National Enquirer (who reads that crap?), cited dropping sales and "a strategy to focus on celebrity weeklies and lifestyle magazines."

I call bullshit. Why read about which B-list celebrities are fucking who and Lindsay Lohan's latest relapse (surprise, surprise) when I can read about Mother Nature endorsing Al Gore in 2008?

WWN editor Bob Greenberger also broke the news on his July 21 blog:

Friday morning, Jeff Rovin comes in for a meeting and then the staff was to be called in. He’s looking harried, not at all relaxed. At 11:30, we’re finally shown into an office where we are told the Board of Directors has chosen to close Weekly World News. The reasons given make no sense. We’re stunned and shell-shocked. We’re to stay on through August 3, finishing the reprint issues and then we’re done. A glorious, funny, odd publication, born in 1979, will go out with a whimper and all I can think is that something’s going on that they’re not telling us because it just doesn’t make sense.
All we can do now is cherish the memories we have of the Weekly World News, instead of mourning its passing. Bat Boy would want it that way.

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