Quite possibly my all-time favorite tabloid, the Weekly World News, is shutting down.
American Media has decided to suspend publication of Weekly World News, both the print publication and the web site. No reason was given at press time, although reliable sources do tell us that management turned down at least one offer to buy the publication.
The weekly supermarket tabloid—known as the home of “Bat Boy” and other less-than-probable stories—has long had staffing connections with the science fiction, fantasy, and horror fields.
Apparently, this came as a surprise to the employees.
Bob Greenberger, an editor with Weekly World News, reports on his blog that he and the rest of the staff were called into a meeting about noon on Friday where they were “told the Board of Directors has chosen to close Weekly World News. The reasons given make no sense. We’re stunned and shell-shocked. We’re to stay on through August 3, finishing the reprint issues and then we’re done. A glorious, funny, odd publication, born in 1979, will go out with a whimper and all I can think is that something’s going on that they’re not telling us because it just doesn’t make sense.”
Greenberger’s line “something’s going on that they’re not telling us” is a classic.
I know — especially where the Weekly World News is concerned! ;)
That’s a shame. But it seems only fitting that the Weekly World News shuts down under “mysterious circumstances”…