The Godfather of Tabloid: Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer

Jack Vitek has written a fascinating biography of the peculiar founder of The National Enquirer, Generoso Pope and, at the same time, a biography of the American icon that he spawned. Pope was the son of a powerful Italian-American who lived in New York. Pope senior was purported to be connected --- or as some people say --- associated with the Mafia. This connection would later provide seed money with which to start the National Enquirer. A young Roy Cohn was a friend of the young Pope junior. And he too would contribute money to found the paper. It is thought that the majority of the money came from the infamous Frank Costello, a New York gangster who rose to the top of America's underworld, controlled a vast gambling empire across the United States and enjoyed political influence like no other La Cosa Nostra boss. He was called "The Prime Minister of the Underworld." It is into this world that Vitek takes us right from the beginning of the book. Vitek is an associate professor of journalism and English at Englewood College in Madison, WI. So one would assume his interest in this subject would be his natural curiosity of this tremendously successful, yet little written-about publication. When I was a young freelance writer, I wrote for The National Enquirer. I was deeply impressed with the fact that it was harder to get a story published in the Enquirer than any other publication I wrote for, including the newspaper I was on at the time. The reason? They checked their facts so well. When I discovered that, I had a new respect for them and I tended to (and still do) believe most of what I read in the paper. Pope ran the publication with an iron hand. Every reporter and editor had a hot line, a private phone, on his or her desk. That phone was for a call from Pope. When a reporter got that call, he stopped doing whatever he was doing, regardless of how important it was. A summon to see Pope came before anything else. No one called him his nickname, Gene or by anything but Mr. Pope of G.P. In the beginning, Pope published gore. He discovered that was what people wanted and would pay for. He also published articles that may have had a grain of truth but no more than a grain. The paper later became somewhat more mainstream --- at least to the extent that it publishes true stories and it does check facts. That may be the reason the circulation is less than it was in its "gore" days. Pope was an illusive and private man. He had very little sense of humor. And certainly during his lifetime, he did not get the attention or respect that such people as William Randolph Hurst and Rupert Murdock got. Yet he accomplished as much and earned as much money. His was as important a publication as any in America. I generally don't enjoy books written by professors or people with Ph.D degrees as they tend to be academic and stuffy. This book, however, is well written. He did a number of telephone interviews with people who knew, and in most cases, work fo