Let's Examine This National Enquirer Cover

By Bobby Finger  |  April 26, 2017 | 10:25pm
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This week’s National Enquirer, the AMI-owned magazine that has transformed into a propaganda machine for President Trump since his election last year, is more dramatic than usual, which is saying a lot. It’s the kind of cover that would distract you from anything, let alone counting the number of items the person in front of you has placed on the conveyer belt of the express checkout line. Before deciding whether or not their two heads of broccoli should count as two separate items, you’d be grabbed by its headline, which is, I’m sad to say, “WORLD WAR 3 IS COMING.”

That’s not a question, by the way. It’s a declarative statement. World War 3, per The National Enquirer, is coming. And not in a vague sense, like, Oh, World War 3 is coming eventually, but not until the water wars begin long after I’m dead. No! World War 3 is coming any day now—tomorrow maybe—and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. They promise to reveal “the day & time all-out war will break loose” within the magazine’s pages, but I don’t have a copy so who knows. Again, this is about the cover, not the content.

Which brings me to my major problem with this cover, which is not that it promises World War 3 is coming any minute now and that King Trump will “crush our 8 enemies,” but that it surrounds the terrifying news with stories that come nowhere near matching the emotional weight of a world war that could potentially end in my own death.

You know what else is a cover story this week? This:

Though wildly titillating, it’s hard to care about John Travolta’s sex life when US “Navy Destroyers are bound for NORTH KOREA” according to a “TOP-SECRET PENTAGON REPORT” that somehow made it into the hands of a National Enquirer reporter who was also holding some “TRAGIC AUDIO TAPES” of Richard Simmons:

While I would genuinely be sad if Richard Simmons “CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE,” I suspect he’s actually taking it just fine—apart from some occasional bout with indigestion. And even if he wasn’t, the West Coast (where he lives) is probably within range of whatever missiles Trump is on a mission to “CRUSH,” so he won’t have take it for much longer.

Even a story on “SEX CREEP” Bill O’Reilly going broke—news that’s actually sort of thrilling to hear—is no match for WORLD WAR 3! I can’t revel in schadenfreude if I’m dead, you know? And if we somehow manage to evade permanent sleep during WORLD WAR 3, society will probably collapse and then everyone will go broke—not just former Fox News employees.

What I’m trying to say is that this cover is bad, and that it could have been so much better and more—forgive me for using this word—impactful had they kept their eyes on the prize, which is that WORLD WAR 3 IS COMING. If WORLD WAR 3 IS COMING, nothing else matters, and the cover of your magazine should look like this:

 
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