Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 09:47:12 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Things of Interest
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

>ronkean at juno.com 10/29/02 09:14PM
>>On Tue, 29 Oct 2002 16:24:22 -0500 "Michael Walsh"
><MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> writes:
>
>> Anyone who actually believes what the Weekly World News publishes
>> probably =
>> has also bought the Brooklyn Bridge, more than once.
>>
>> mjw
>>
>
>Apparently the tabloids have a wide circulation,

Of the "Top 100 Consumer Magazines 2001" the National Enquier is #37 with =
a circulation of 1,934,706  (http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0301522.html)=

> judging from the fact
>that they are on display in nearly every second grocery checkout aisle in
>the country.  I marvel at the implication that tens of millions of
>American adults actually believe what they read in the tabloids.  But
>perhaps many of the regular readers read them as a form of entertainment,
>regarding the truth of the stories as irrelevant to that purpose.  For an
>online 'news' source wherein none of the stories are true, but nearly all
>are entertaining, see http://www.theonion.com/index.shtml .

"No one in this world, so far as I know, and I have searched the
 records, and emplyed agents to help me, has ever lost money by
 underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain
 people." - - H. L. Mencken

mjw