1. The Bezos/National Enquirer business is a reminder that there has been a longstanding affinity between authoritarian politics and gossip mongering tabloids, going back at least a century to William Randolph Hearst.
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4. The Hearst papers and other right-wing outlets (notable Joseph Patterson's New York Daily News) found that reactionary politics & gossip could go hand in hand, with writers like Walter Winchell, Louisa Parsons, and Hedda Hopper regularly smearing the left.
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5. If you think about it, gossip is a naturally conservative social force: you tell tales about people who break conventions. In the midcentury tabloid press, that meant gossip about movie stars that were communists, leftwing, gay or otherwise unconventional.
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7. Beyond Hearst, we see this fusion of tabloids with the right again and again: think of Page 6 & the New York Post or the broader journalistic practices of our latest William Randolph Hearst: Rupert Murdoch.
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8. Conversely: has there ever been a left-wing tabloid or gossip columnist? I suppose Winchell had a New Deal period but he turned hard right. Maybe Drew Pearson? Maybe Gawker? Some examples, but not a lot.
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9. Trump himself was a pure product of this fusion of right-wing politics with tabloid culture. Much of his early fame came from his ability to dominate the headlines of the New York papers & the mentorship of Roy Cohn taught him the value of chits & compromising info.
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10. I have a longer think piece here about the connections between weaponized gossip, Trumpism, and right-wing politics:https://newrepublic.com/article/143688/donald-trump-weaponization-gossip …
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It’s worth mentioning Hearst’s record of racketeering in service to his political ambitions. Max Annenberg testified the Hearst press and the Chicago Commissioner of Public Works conspired in 1906 to shut down Marshall Field for code violations after the store had pulled its adspic.twitter.com/lO4WnKYm8K
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