'Lien' streets, Sheen repeats and the Queen beat: In which the tabs get star-crazy
Today's tabloids, March 8, 2011.
8:28 am Mar. 8, 2011
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?
The New York Post: You have to be following all the Charlie Sheen nonsense in what I'd call pretty granular detail to know that while filming on his CBS sitcom, "Two and a Half Men," has been suspended for the season due to his public antics, he hadn't yet actually been fired. Well, now he has! "Charlie canned," reads the yellow-with-blue-outline text over a head-and-shoulders portrait of the actor, looking pretty bad: greasy-looking hair, white stubble, his skin seeming draped over his skull like a throw blanket. "'MORALS' RIPPED" is the dek, referring to the letter sent by CBS to Sheen officially terminating him on grounds of breach of contract (they claim he couldn't remember lines, hit marks or, really, stand up during filming) and "moral turpitude" including "furnishing" drugs for friends and bragging about it on television and on the Internet.
But the big bad boy today is Martin Scorsese. "TAX-IE DODGER" reads the slightly forced hed in knockout over a giant portrait of the famous director. Why "TAX-IE?" Why not "TAXY?" It's not like we won't get the joke; and, it looks weird. "Scorsese slapped for $2.85M by IRS" is the dek, which pretty much tells the whole story.
Get ready for "BIG EAST MADNESS!" Seriously, though, it feels like a long time since New Yorkers claimed St. John's basketball team, the Red Storm, as their hometown heroes. And for a bit there it seemed like they were the only game in town—especially if you were one of the grumps on the matter of the trade of most of the Knicks in exchange for Carmelo Anthony. Anyway, I'd rather root for Father Harrington than the Dolans or Prokhorov, myself.
Daily News: The News also decides to front Sheen today—bizarrely. "MAN DOWN" reads the big black type in a wide box at the bottom of the page; the "O" in "DOWN" has Charlie's head and neck peeking out of it, a decision that has the bizarre effect of giving the man an ostrich neck, since it has to fill the very tall, narrow space in the middle of the "O" in the News' front-page headline typeface. The dek is equally puzzling: "Sheen canned from 'Two and a Half Men,' vows suit." Vows? I don't think they vowed to can Sheen—I think they canned him. Of course Sheen can fight it in court. But when you sue for a divorce do you "vow divorce"?
It doesn't matter that much since the main attraction today is a darling childhood photo of Kate Middleton. "THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE QUEEN" reads the type over the photo. "Kate Middleton's childhood pics." The pictures are credited to "THE MIDDLETON FAMILY" in a standard photo credit on the left—as well as a watermark, faintly visible near the bottom of the picture, and not quite successfully blurred out by the photo fixers. Nice work!
Observations: Well, we're not really assessing how well the pages do with designers here—if we were, that watermark and the weird Sheen silhouette would relegate the News to the junkbin. What we're asking is whether a young Kate Middleton or a smiling Martin Scorsese has more newsstand appeal, and whether the papers did enough to sell their cover stars. (Let's call Sheen a wash.) Well for one thing, Scorsese's local; for another, he's in the U.S. And lastly, what's happening to him is news. It's not that the Middleton pictures aren't a decent sale for the cover; it's just that it didn't need to take up so much space to sell. Nobody's buying this one to keep the cover; it's the promise of the photos inside that will generate a sale, right? From that point of view, we might ask why the Post didn't do it too; but we have to give them the win for choosing the Scorsese story. It's just too bad about the headline.
Winner: The New York Post.
