Enquirer patriarch gets his due in new bio

Anyone who has ever killed time standing in line at the grocery store is no doubt familiar with The National Enquirer. Although most Americans have read at least an issue or two of the tabloid, not many people know much about Generose Pope Jr., who founded the paper and edited it for 36 years until his death in 1988.

Pope was an eccentric chain-smoker who transformed the National Enquirer from a small regional weekly into a lurid nationwide powerhouse that helped spawn a new kind of national entertainment. He took ideas that had worked well for both the Pulitzer and Hearst organizations to create a new kind of paper that was a heady mix of truth and the outlandish. At its peak, more than 5 million copies were published each week at its plant in Florida.

When the National Enquirer began publishing in color, Pope founded The Weekly World News to make use of the company’s idled black-and-white presses. The Weekly World News was even more outrageous than the Enquirer and was an instant success. Bat Boy — a strange cross between a bat and a boy — was created and became a celebrity with Weekly World readers.

Jack Vitek has written a highly entertaining biography of Pope, who may or may not have financed The National Enquirer with Mafia money, and who conducted most of his deals in backrooms and out of the public eye. According to Vitek, the National Enquirer endured when other publications folded because Pope had the good business sense to revamp the paper to meet the demands of his changing audience.

Grounded in interviews with Pope, his associates and his employees, “The Godfather of Tabloid” is the first comprehensive look at the life of this colorful character, a man who almost singlehandedly changed the world of publishing forever.