Weekly World News, the black-and-white tabloid that for 28 years colorfully chronicled the exploits of Bat Boy, Elvis sightings and Satan living in a microwave, has stopped the presses. Oh how I wish the news of its demise was only a CIA-plotted hoax. Alas, like Hitler's cloned nose growing a mustache, it's all too surreal.
Right at this very moment — next to the pocket-size 501 cat-inspired crossword puzzles and battery-operated dental floss — sits the last print issue of the Weekly World News. The wait in the supermarket checkout lane will never be the same. Of course there is always the scandal sheets with the latest celebrity dirty laundry. I'll stick to reading the ingredient label on a bag of pork rinds — far less depressing.
Turns out it wasn't Bigfoot suing for libel that did in the Weekly World News. According to a CBS web site news report, the tabloid's publisher issued a statement that called the closure necessary "due to the challenges in the retail and wholesale magazine marketplace that have impacted the newsstand.” Funny, you'd think a publication prone to Nostradamus end-of-the-world predictions would have seen this coming. All I know is that unemployed WWN columnist Ed Anger must be a teensy bit upset.
News reports, none of which are attributed to "A Scientist” or even "A Baffled Scientist,” state that the Weekly World News will live on online — unfortunately in color. Elvis would be rolling over in his grave if he wasn't busy working at a Burger King in Kalamazoo. I mean where is the guilty pleasure of reading about the love affair between Hillary Clinton and P'lod, an alien with a foot-long tongue, on your home computer. Unless you convince grandma to stand behind you with a shopping cart and look disapprovingly over your shoulder.
While I haven't purchased a WWN in years, I still harbored the notion of being on the newspaper's payroll. While other reporters yearn for a slot at the Washington Post or New York Times, I always fancied myself covering the talking produce beat. Although after one too many blowhard governmental meetings, I'm sure others would gladly toss aside certain conventions of journalism — such as printing facts — and write about possessed appliances or a water-skiing Chupacabra.
Oh well, at least I still have my dream journalism career fall back: fact checker at The Onion.
This week marks the end of an era of all the news that seemed unfit to print. The next time I'm standing in line at the supermarket, I won't have Bat Boy or Not Dead Yet Elvis to keep me company — talk about an alien concept.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached at 933-1416 or e-mail gleiva@gtherald.com