The Godfather of Tabloid: Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer [Hardcover]

Jack Vitek (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2008

They're hard to miss at grocery stores and newsstands in America -- the colorful, heavily illustrated tabloid newspapers with headlines promising shocking, unlikely, and sometimes impossible stories within. Although the papers are now ubiquitous, the supermarket tabloid's origin can be traced to one man: Generoso Pope Jr., an eccentric, domineering chain-smoker who died of a heart attack at age sixty-one. In The Godfather of Tabloid, Jack Vitek explores the life and remarkable career of Pope and the founding of the most famous tabloid of all -- 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 tirelessly and cultivating a mix of American journalists (some of whom, surprisingly, were Pulitzer prize winners) and buccaneering Brits from Fleet Street who would do anything to get a story, Pope changed the name, format, and content of the modest weekly newspaper until it resembled nothing America had ever seen before. At its height, the National Enquirer boasted a circulation of more than five million, equivalent to the numbers of the Hearst newspaper empire. Pope measured the success of his paper by the mail it received from readers, and eventually the volume of reader feedback was such that the post office assigned the Enquirer offices their own zip code. Pope was skeptical about including too much celebrity coverage in the tabloid because he thought it wouldn't hold people's interest, and he shied away from political stories or stances. He wanted the paper to reflect the middlebrow tastes of America and connect with the widest possible readership. Pope was a man of contradictions: he would fire someone for merely disagreeing with him in a meeting (once firing an one editor in the middle of his birthday party), and yet he spent upwards of a million dollars a year to bring the world's tallest Christmas tree to the Enquirer offices in Lantana, Florida, for the enjoyment of the local citizens. Driven, tyrannical, and ruthless in his pursuit of creating an empire, Pope changed the look and content of supermarket tabloid media, and the industry still bears his stamp. Grounded in interviews with many of Pope's supporters, detractors, and associates, The Godfather of Tabloid is the first comprehensive biography of the man who created a genre and changed the world of publishing forever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his first solo effort, journalist and author Vitek (Idol Rock Hudson) introduces the original tabloid boss: Generoso Pope Jr., creator of the National Enquirer, mother of the ubiquitous supermarket tabloid (and, arguably, upper-class iterations Us Weekly and People). Vitek's material largely focuses on the fiery management, harsh opposition to, and heavy influence of the Enquirer since 1952, when Pope purchased it (then the New York Enquirer) with help from the Mafia. The endeavor's stunted beginning was rife with gory photos and absurd stories deemed unsuitable for grocery store checkouts--one early issue included photos of Lee Harvey Oswald's autopsy--and a policy of literally putting words in subjects' mouth. Pope Jr.'s riches-to-rags-to-riches story--born into a family of self-made millionaires (with assumed Mafia connections), devastated by his father's untimely death, shunned by his family and left penniless, redeemed as a successful media mogul--fascinates with the ins and outs of bottom-basement journalism and the ferocity with which Pope Jr. ruled and defended his media foxhole (becoming a model for none other than Rupert Murdoch). Vitek lays on the mafia lingo a bit too thick--overusing language like "whacked," with a mob movie reference always at the ready--but offers an original American story of a tough, embattled media player with uncanny gifts for giving the public what they want. Photos.
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Review

""An entertaining look at this colorful and quintessentially American character…Vitek's will be the enduring study of Pope and the supermarket tabloid culture he spawned."--Dennis McDougal, author of The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman, MCA, and the Hidden History of Hollywood "A lively, shrewd and thoroughly compelling biography of National Enquirer publisher Generoso Pope Jr. Vitek melds journalistic flashiness with one sharp professorial insight after another into the nature of tabloid journalism and the powerful and peculiar Pope." --David Holmberg, contributor to the New York Times, regional edition" --

""The Godfather of Tabloid" is an engaging saga of one man's obsessive devotion to creating an entertaining alternative universe each week for four or five million Americans clutching their quarters at the supermarket check-out racks."--Edward Kosner, Wall Stret Journal Online" --

""Grounded in interviews with Pope, his associates and his employees, "The Godfather of Tabloid is the first comprehensive look at the life of this colorful character, a man who almost singlehandedly changed the world of publishing forever."--King Features Syndicate, Inc." --

""Easy to read and including helpful footnotes and a bibliography, this book will particularly interest libraries in Florida, where Pope was an influential citizen. Recommended."--R.A. Logan, Choice" --

""The book is well worth reading. For those of us who could seldom avoid the allure of the Enquirer's shlocky headlines, this book is interesting. And Pope survived some very lean years. Struggling newspapers today might even learn a lesson or two from him."--Prudy, Taylor Board, Boca Raton News" --

""Easy to read and including helpful footbotes and a bibliography, this book will particularly interest libraries in Florida, where Pop was an influential citizen. Recommended."--Choice" --

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky; 1 edition (September 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813125030
• ISBN-13: 978-0813125039
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,277,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The story behind a cultural icon, August 12, 2008

By 

Susanna Hutcheson "Copywriting for the Discri... (Midwest U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Godfather of Tabloid: Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer (Hardcover)

Jack Vitek has written a fascinating biography of the peculiar founder of The National Enquirer, Generoso Pope and, at the same time, a biography of the American icon that he spawned.

Pope was the son of a powerful Italian-American who lived in New York. Pope senior was purported to be connected --- or as some people say --- associated with the Mafia. This connection would later provide seed money with which to start the National Enquirer.

A young Roy Cohn was a friend of the young Pope junior. And he too would contribute money to found the paper. It is thought that the majority of the money came from the infamous Frank Costello, a New York gangster who rose to the top of America's underworld, controlled a vast gambling empire across the United States and enjoyed political influence like no other La Cosa Nostra boss. He was called "The Prime Minister of the Underworld."

It is into this world that Vitek takes us right from the beginning of the book. Vitek is an associate professor of journalism and English at Englewood College in Madison, WI. So one would assume his interest in this subject would be his natural curiosity of this tremendously successful, yet little written-about publication.

When I was a young freelance writer, I wrote for The National Enquirer. I was deeply impressed with the fact that it was harder to get a story published in the Enquirer than any other publication I wrote for, including the newspaper I was on at the time. The reason? They checked their facts so well. When I discovered that, I had a new respect for them and I tended to (and still do) believe most of what I read in the paper. Pope ran the publication with an iron hand.

Every reporter and editor had a hot line, a private phone, on his or her desk. That phone was for a call from Pope. When a reporter got that call, he stopped doing whatever he was doing, regardless of how important it was. A summon to see Pope came before anything else. No one called him his nickname, Gene or by anything but Mr. Pope of G.P.

In the beginning, Pope published gore. He discovered that was what people wanted and would pay for. He also published articles that may have had a grain of truth but no more than a grain. The paper later became somewhat more mainstream --- at least to the extent that it publishes true stories and it does check facts.

That may be the reason the circulation is less than it was in its "gore" days.

Pope was an illusive and private man. He had very little sense of humor. And certainly during his lifetime, he did not get the attention or respect that such people as William Randolph Hurst and Rupert Murdock got. Yet he accomplished as much and earned as much money. His was as important a publication as any in America.

I generally don't enjoy books written by professors or people with Ph.D degrees as they tend to be academic and stuffy. This book, however, is well written. He did a number of telephone interviews with people who knew, and in most cases, work for Pope.

The author does take the liberty to guess what might have happened in a number of cases. But he says things like, "It may have . . ." so you know he is considering a possibility and not stating a fact.

The National Enquirer would, and will, send a reporter anywhere, anytime to get the big story. It will spare no expense. And it very often scoops other publications.

When I was doing a story on Roe Messner and Tammy Faye Baker, I was in the courtroom. Next to me was a friend of Messner's former wife. She looked at me and said, "Are you with the National Enquirer?"

"Yes", I replied.

"I could tell. You dress better than the local media," she said.

And that in essence is why the Enquirer can get the get better than anyone else. It pays well. Pope set a high standard. The paper may have been an investment and, perhaps even a tool, of the mob. But it was and is one of the greatest parts of the average American citizen's life.

When the paper published a photo of Elvis in his coffin, it sold more papers than at any other time and the circulation continued to grow. It now is not doing well and stopped doing well right after Pope died and the paper was sold.

However, the author tells us that mainstream publications and tabloid television have now turned to yellow journalism and that the National Enquirer is basically now mainstream and even respected by traditional media.

Whether a person admits it or not, he is drawn to The National Enquirer. Pope was not the kind of journalist that Hurst was. But he knew his reader. And that knowledge paid off.

Pope was a man of privilege but he split with his family after his father's death. He was close to broke when he started the publication. It was the investment of the Mob and Cohn that created his paper. But it was Pope who made it great.

This book is a valuable and, I think, important book. It's a book that gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the power of one man and his publication. Pope was not a colorful man. He had little life outside his paper. He was odd. Yet for all that, his story "is" the story of The National Enquirer.

This is a tremendously entertaining book and I highly recommend it.

- Susanna K. Hutcheson

3.0 out of 5 stars No Charisma in Tabloid Godfather, January 2, 2009

By 

Edward S. Brown "Charisma Expert" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Godfather of Tabloid: Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer (Hardcover)

"The Godfather of Tabloid: Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer" is an aspirational book for those lacking every necessary ingredient for achieving success, except ambition and a good idea. In this book, Jack Vitek uncovers how Generoso Pope Jr. created the National Enquirer and changed contemporary journalism forever. While the book is a great business tome for how to construct a company, it says something about the American psyche.

One statement says it all about why the National Enquirer was able to expand the scope of journalism. "If you want to know what to put on the cover, just go down to the bar, to the barber, to the beauty shop and listen to what people are talking about." (p. 209)

"...Original ideas weren't really what tabloids specialized in. Their specialty was probing and finding popular culture's mother lode and repackaging it in tabloid form. (P. 197)

As a curmudgeon, Generoso Pope Jr., proved that charisma and personality isn't important as long as you give people what they want. I recommend this book as a testament to the foibles of the average man and the triumphant spirit that elevates him.

Edward Brown

Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute

www.core-edge.com

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars BOR-ing! Repetitive!, December 2, 2008

By 

Janet P. Reagan "Inveterate wordsmith" (Elizabethton, TN (displaced Tar Heel)) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Godfather of Tabloid: Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer (Hardcover)

Perhaps because I remember so much of the controversies connected to The Enquirer, it seems boring to read. Am stymied at the half-way mark, which tells me to re-sell it for I won't read the rest of it. But I love to do the puzzle at the back of each Enquirer and their medical articles are top of the mark and current. And that's not saying the gossip isn't enjoyable, too! The puzzle is the first page I turn to; it's a dandy. I love to finish it and figure out the name of the star the pink squares spell out. But the book? Anghhhhh!