Jesus Hills: No!
On Aug. 27, a staple to the racks of many supermarkets, said its last goodbyes. The “Weekly World News” has decided to close its doors after being in print for 28 years. It was always one of those entertaining pieces of drivel that people would read as they wasted their lives away in the incredibly long lines of the supermarket. Once it came time to pay for the groceries it would always be placed back where it was found in a slightly more disheveled fashion, with the only acknowledgment being a slight chuckle at its total absurdity. It was just one of those things that were always there. You could count on it to be there even if you didn’t read it, and now it’s gone. But the question that I now pose is: will it be missed?
The answer to this question is, “not in the least.”
How many people ever actually bought the newspaper? How many read it religiously and can say that they own an, “I love Bat Boy” shirt? Not many.It was mostly there to amuse the bored customers of the supermarket, but even without it there are plenty of other things to keep you distracted about the cost of the fruit you are buying. There is still the “National Enquirer,” “US weekly,” “People Magazine,” “Cosmopolitan,” “Soap Opera Digest,” and hell, even an occasional newspaper to keep you amused.If you want a laugh in the line, there is just an absolute buffet of headlines for you ranging from the “National Enquirers,” paparazzi spreads, “10 more new ways to please your man,” in “Cosmo,” to the altogether ridiculous-and might I add true-stories of Lindsey, Paris, Britney and whoever else is the next screwed up flavor of the month. “Weekly World News,” has plenty of other substitutes to fill in the now vacated racks, it used to fill. The very fact that WWN is longer publishing, won’t cause the world to stop and I am pretty sure I won’t be seeing any memorials for the deceased newspaper outside of my local Safeway. Besides, those bored enough to read WWN while waiting to pay for their groceries will eventually gravitate towards some other publication, or start talking to one of their fellow queue-ers and WWN will simply be lost to the everyday headlines, and recent heiress scandal. Besides Bat Boy has had plenty of time in the limelight and I am sure that he and the worlds fattest twins would like to be left alone for once.
Shannon Elliott: Yes!
Over the summer one of the most recognizable and noted newspapers in the world folded, collapsed in upon itself, went under, disappeared off the stands. Weekly World News a celebrated news paper that brought us fantastic stories that other papers like the Chronicle and Examiner wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.
Will Weekly World News be missed? Most certainly!
Where is the public supposed to get the coverage they crave so much about such things as the discovery of a bat child found in a cave who they appropriately dubbed Bat Boy, or the fact that the Vatican is training its priests to go spread the gospel on Mars, and it was totally ignored by the Examiner that the four horsemen of the apocalypse got lost and were found wandering near Paris. Without Weekly World News we would have never heard about these bizarre events. Trust me I would definitely like that handy knowledge about the four horsemen. Now, Now people, don’t think that I believe all (or any ) of the stories that once graced the cheap black and white pages of Weekly World News, it was a break from hard news, from soft news, from real news. It was a land for the people who loved stories about alien abductions, women giving birth to litters of kittens, classic stories about Elvis and JFK still being alive and owning a doughnut shop with Tupac and Kurt Cobain in Iowa. But it also contained doses of political satire with the columnist Ed Anger’s My America, with such topics as Just Pave the Damn Rain Forest. Now my counter part feels that it will not be missed, but this is not true by any means, if it was not missed would it have received an obit in the Washington Post? Or one from TIME? Or in Reuters? Even CBS and ABC have chimed in on the death of the famed rag? No they wouldn’t, and The Enquirer, US Weekly, People, and The Sun will never be able to fill your shoes because they do not have the same wit, the same skill for satire, the same ability to laugh at ones self and write stories about mass produced clones of Hitler or there not being any room left in heaven. So has Weekly World News died a silent, unnoticed, un-mourned death, Nay! I say, the Weekly World News will rest in peace and know that you are missed, by humans, aliens, Bat Boy, big foots (feet?) and everything in-between!
