Playing catch-up: Men in bodysuits and foot-fetish models
Today's tabloids, Dec. 22, 2010.
7:47 am Dec. 22, 20101
Each day, the New York tabloids vie to sell readers at the newsstands on outrageous headlines, dramatic photography, and, occasionally, great reporting. Who is today's winner?
Daily News: I just don't know what to say here. A pixellated picture of a woman in her 40s in the driver's seat of an S.U.V., leaning back in the seat with her feet propped up and out of the driver's seat window, an expression of abandon playing across her half-lidded eyes, takes up the entire width of the page over a giant black headline that reads, "NOW THAT'S FOOT-BALL!" For context, consult the red stripe across the top: "REX WIFE LOOK-ALIKE IN FETISH VIDEO."
It's just not the way you want to start your morning. Let's begin with the fact that internet fetish videos just don't have the mass-market sex appeal of, say, a beautiful $5,000-a-date call girl like Capri Anderson (remember her?). So when a could-be "scandal" erupts across the front pages, it's partly the scandal and partly the marketability of the Lady in Question that drives the coverage. Here, a pair of dogs is in your face, and you are asked to imagine Jets coach Rex Ryan slobbering all over them.
Curb appeal notwithstanding, the story is really an embarrassment. It's the privilege of a Web site like Deadspin to run with a story when it's interesting, and not wait for confirmation: they're crowd-sourcing the question. So when the site posted these videos yesterday and noticed, aside from the uncanny similarity of the woman in the videos to Michelle Ryan, that certain biographical facts in her YouTube profile match those of the Ryans, it was not really incumbent on them to claim absolutely that it was the Ryans performing in the videos. The headline on Deadspin, which reads "This May Or May Not Be Rex Ryan's Wife Making Foot-Fetish Videos," is not the stuff of newspaper journalism.
Why, you ask? Before this becomes a boring debate about the future of journalism or the Low Standards of the Web, let me just say: It's not because the topic is too low or guttery (though taste is a factor in making appealing print covers and the News makes a mistake giving this its whole front page). It's not that the story is not confirmed (the News covers its bases by talking to a Jets spokesperson, which we'll get to in a moment). It's that if newspapers mean to show why they are still worth something in the present age, the best way to do it is not just to repeat the reporting already owned by Deadspin and making its way to millions more readers every moment than your story can. The only way to overtake the story is to advance it. Prove that this is, or isn't, Michelle Ryan, and you've proven why you have a full-time, paid reporting staff. Don't, and you've proven why print is dead and can't possibly hope to compete.
But let's talk for a minute about what the News does have, because it's a classic case:
Reached for comment, a Jets spokesman said only: "This is a personal matter and Rex will have no comment."
Huh? So here is a wrinkle. Why "no comment" this story? Could it actually be true?
Unfortunately for the News, hunches added on top of a Deadspin report do not make an advance on a story. Here's what I get from that quote, if I'm working the newsroom. They are not denying it; denying it would be the easiest thing in the world to do if the videos are not theirs. So, we have to take seriously now the possibility they really are. Everyone's working this story at the same time. So there's the prospect of nailing it first. Get me 10 reporters!
What instead comes out of the News today is possible with some cutting and pasting from Deadspin, followed by a single phone call to an unnamed person in Jets P.R. It's sad. And let's stipulate that this story stinks anyway and should be nowhere near the cover.
The New York Post: They're playing catch-up on a story of their own, but they're up to the job: in a large almost-square box on the lower-right-hand edge of the page, a silhouette of a crouching Spider-Man looks out at us from under the headline, "MANGLED WEB." The dek promises an even bigger break: "Spidey's final curtain looms after disaster." It's a bit of an oversell. After one of the Spidey stunt doubles toppled off the stage into the orchestra pit in a Monday night preview performance, last night's show was canceled with the promise the show would go on as of today, when a technical tune-up was supposed to reassure producers (and no doubt disappoint tourists who expect to be interviewed by one of the tabloids after each preview to describe whatever mishap they've witnessed) that things were safe.
In fact, the Post reports, "the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been probing the problem-plagued production since early last month because of the prior accidents, at the specific request of the state Department of Labor." Nothing about that really means curtains for Spidey, except: "[A] source who works for the $65 million production said they are skeptical that the show will actually be able to reopen by Wednesday." Well, we'll see! This paper's fish-wrap by the time of opening curtain. And, nothing in the story indicates that the show, which has pushed its public premiere forward for an artistic and technical overhaul, actually won't happen. So the curtains aren't exactly "looming." Still, the piece is encyclopedic, taking in technical details from the Las Vegas firm that developed the mechanics of the show. (Yes, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is brought to you in part by the firm that brings you Vegas shows.)
Solid as it is, it's not deemed enough to hold the page, so help comes in the form of a still from the movie Little Fockers showing stars Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. "Silly 'Fockers,'" reads the hed. And this time it's an undersell. Kyle Smith's review is eviscerating: "'Can a girl poop from her vagina?' a kid asks at a family dinner. No, son, but you'd be surprised what can come out of a hack's word processor," he writes. And: "[It] may not be the worst, most vulgar, most pathetic and least funny picture of the year. But it's a strong contender for second place behind the picture Brett Favre allegedly sent over his cellphone." OK then!
Along the lefthand side is a strip advertising a column headlined "Why Tom must NOT go," about the Giants. I don't see what the front page gains from having this, or what the story gains in promotion from being on the cover. It's not enough to clutter the page disastrously, but it's not a disciplined move. Maybe two entertainment stories seemed to textureless for the page?
Observations: Every once in a while a journalistic bellyflop actually makes a front page hard to sell, I think. The flop has to be pretty fantastic. Today, we get to punish the bad guy.
Winner: The New York Post.
F-E-E-T, FEETS, FEETS, FEETS!