Fake News and Failed Friendships : An Analysis of Trump , Pecker , and the National Enquirer
paper at a newsstand or small grocery store . Pope conceived the idea of selling the Enquirer at supermarkets . He had to tone down the carnage on the cover to sell his tabloid in a marketplace where women shoppers predominated . In a 1972 interview , Pope observed , “ We had saturated the gore market , and since this is a business , I knew we had to change ” ( Morton 33 ). He diversified the content . The tabloid featured stories about celebrities , especially new TV personalities . Yet the Enquirer remained true to its heritage . The tabloid ’ s writers continued to write stories that provoked and aroused a negative emotional response .
Supermarkets proved a tough market to enter until Pope hired blond movie star , Jane Mansfield , to promote the paper at a convention of supermarket executives . He offered them 25 % off the cover price of every Enquirer sold and promised to buy back unsold copies ( Calder 56 ). It was a retailer ’ s dream . They had only two points of contact , when a clerk rang up the sale of the tabloid at the cover price and when they remitted the agreed upon fee for the Enquirers they sold .
Pope moved the publication to Florida in 1955 after his mob connections warned he could get hurt if he stayed in New York ( Connolly para . 2 ). More likely , the cost savings effect of nonunion labor and favorable backhaul freight rates to distribute his tabloid nationally also figured in his decision . In the 90s , the supermarket tabloid business went through a period of rapid consolidation . Pope ’ s heirs sold the Enquirer and other affiliated newspapers for $ 412 million on Pope ’ s death in 1968 . The publication suffered an anthrax attack in 2001 , filed for bankruptcy in 2010 with $ 1 billion in debt , and moved back to New York in 2015 .
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