The Untold Story: My 20 Years Running the National Enquirer (Hardcover)

by Lain Calder (Author) "It was 1964, and life was good..." (more)
Key Phrases: celebrity stories, mainstream journalists, New York, National Enquirer, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
On September 3, 2001, Newsweek stated, "you could make the case that The Enquirer almost single-handedly created our celebrity culture." Calder, executive editor of the topselling tabloid for 23 years, substantiates this claim with dozens of entertaining anecdotes about Elvis, Judy Garland, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Roseanne Barr, Donald Trump, Oprah, O.J. Simpson and Carol Burnett (the only star to win a lawsuit against the publication during Calder's tenure). The refreshing surprise here is that Calder's own tale of his rise and reign proves just as compelling as his superstar portrayals. Born in a coal-mining Scottish town, Calder became a "young kamikaze" journalist at 16. He worked under Gene Pope, a visionary who never took no for an answer, called presidents without hesitation and demanded total courage from his staff. Unlike many Enquirer employees, Calder flourished under Pope's pressure, developing a network of contacts, and infiltrated the unions and business affairs offices of major networks, studios and agents. He takes great pride in his paper's research, fact checking and overall accuracy. The book is a compulsive page-turner, like the tabloid it describes, written in clear, conversational style. It offers valuable psychological tools and blunt reality about coming up through the trenches and discovering the secrets they don't teach you in journalism school.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker
In this memoir of twenty years of editing the National Enquirer, Calder insists loudly on the tabloid's cultural significance, but his book is strangely parochial: a hagiography of the magazine's late owner, Generoso Pope, Jr., cut with blustery war stories about the tactics of its dirt-gathering corps—cummerbund cameras, clueless-tourist disguises. Calder makes good points about the Enquirer's revolutionizing effect on the news industry and the uneasy complicity it forged between celebrities and journalists. Nonetheless, his reminiscences tend to showcase his starstruck side. He devotes more pages to the time he was asked to appear in a vacuum-cleaner advertisement than to the 2001 anthrax attack on the magazine's headquarters, and he is so proud of meeting Glen Campbell at a supermarket-convention gala in Las Vegas that he named his first child Glen.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Miramax (July 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786869410
• ISBN-13: 978-0786869411
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #529,149 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Homage to the Money God, August 13, 2004

By	Artist Barbara Garro (Barbara Garro at http://www.ElectricEnvisions.com in Saratoga Springs, NY) - See all my reviews

Iain Calder tells a good story about an American news icon.

One story tells about three employees making over $40,000 a year in the 1970s who risked their jobs and criminal prosecution to split a pie of $20,000 less expenses. Another tells tales of Jackie O, Ari and JFK,Jr. Then there comes a really big story about an Elvis coup that is not to be missed.

Do you need to know all these juicy details of the lives of the rich, famous, infamous, and weird, like the ugliest man's plastic surgury after and before pictures? I kept turning page after page excitedly looking for more.

I found that the "National Enquirer" was more than I thought it was after reading Calder's historical pictureless tome.

Yes, it was a huge disappointment that there was not one picture in this 314 page book except for Iain Calder on the jacket.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars easy, fun read, August 2, 2004

By	R. S.reiss (boca raton, florida United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Iain Calders book is an easy,fun read.Never having read the National Enquirer,I was surprised to learn what a serious publication it was.Their entrepreneurial out of the box methods to get the story were fascinating.Our journalism schools could do well to take notice.After reading this book I have become a reader of the National Enquirer.I highly recommend this book....Bob Reiss,Boca Raton,Fl.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Iain Calder fired me! Great book ; buy it NOW!, August 28, 2004

By	Hector McSpoon "Ace Tab Photographer" (Charlotte NC) - See all my reviews

Hundreds of Tabloid pros were fired by America's Most Feared Editor, Iain Calder - I was one of them. No matter, one simply should not bugger off AWOL to Egypt and not tell the boss!

Iain's fantastic romp down Tabloid Memory Lane took me back to many forgotten NATIONAL ENQUIRER escapades.

Yes, we carried $ thousands in cash, yes, we hired helicopters by the dozen, yes; we got the story before the local press even knew we were in town. Small wonder the "legitimate press" dubbed us the Foreign Legion of journalism. Poor scribes, they simply could not compete.

The ENQUIRER was also used in classrooms as an educational tool; we exposed Government waste, published happy pictures of our staff dog, Lucky, visiting big name stars; we published Rags to Riches stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

NE medical reporters were the best in the media - diets that really worked; we broke the World's First Test Tube Baby story, too.

An editor on the NE during those swashbuckler days, even I was unaware of many of the UNTOLD STORIES so vividly described in this five-star adventure yarn - Can't wait for the movie.

Kudos to Calder!