Ah, the New York Post- lowbrow vanity project of Rupert Murdoch, entertainer of the people, so trashy, so enjoyable. Even if you’re (literally) above the unwashed masses on the subways, reading your NY Times as you take your taxi/limo service/car to work you still can’t avoid the Post. It’s at the newsstands, in the gutter, hawked from street corners, with headlines like magnets dragging your eyes against your will.
Considering the content’s mostly sports updates, bizarre news events culled from other sources and the occasional ranting opinion piece labeled a ‘story’, I’m beginning to believe the Post exists solely as a vehicle for the headlines. They’re infamously amazing, never letting taste or decency stop a bad pun or direct insult. I’d like to imagine two old guys sit in a basement somewhere at the Post’s offices; every now and again a harried editor pops his head in and shouts a current event, leaving the fellows to haggle back and forth for the perfect headline, sort of like in ‘Hudsucker Proxy’.
Actually I imagine the entire Post office is run like in ‘Hudsucker Proxy’. Leave me my small dreams! Whoever’s actually responsible, they have a singular talent for burning current events into the brain with wonderously stupid, stupid titles like:
The day the Elliot Spitzer scandal broke out, my sister and her friend spent the whole night anticipating what tomorrow’s Post headline would be. They came up with ‘Spitzer Swallows’, but with elegant simplicity the Post went with
If you were in the city when it came out, you will not forget what has to be their tackiest title ever, guaranteed to slap your eyes:
When you put brassiness and emotion ahead of journalism and decency you get the Post’s happily lowbrow headlines, particularly as relating to knee-jerk politics:
They’re also not above a quick Photoshop hack job, particularly when razzing opposing sports teams, a subject for them (and those New Yorkers who care) that cuts to the quick.
I love this one most because it doesn’t even try.
On a playground somewhere their manager is crying.
Crass as they can be a lot of the headlines stick because they hit the nerve felt by many – ‘Not So Fast you greedy bastards’ jumps to mind, a glorious banner waving through the transit systems soon after an insulting amount of money was given out to companies ‘too big to fail’.
Digging up these headlines I found out a book compiling their headlines titled ‘Headless Body in Topless Bar’, after a vintage gem with accompanying photo, was just released. While the Grey Lady may be the official document of the nation, tilting a hand to those in the boroughs, the Post captures the unwashed underbelly best.
