Tabloids Quotes

“We need not reply or even listen to people who are talking about—not to—us.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Scripture-pure veracity and scandal-rag content. That conjunction gives it its sizzle. You carry the seed of belief within you already. You recall the time this narrative captures and sense conspiracy. I am here to tell you that it is all true and not at all what you think. You will read with some reluctance and capitulate in the end. The following pages will force you to succumb. I am going to tell you everything.”
― James Ellroy, Blood's a Rover

“Though people sort of need your permission to talk to you, they do not really need one to talk about you.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
It's interesting when people die -
Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry

You don't really need to find out what's going on
You don't really want to know just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry”
― Don Henley

“A paparazzi is merely an extremely nosy nobody with a camera—and bills to pay.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Confessions of a Misfit

“But that’s what happens. Once the human tragedy has been completed, it gets turned over to the journalists to banalize into entertainment. Perhaps it’s because the whole irrational frenzy burst right through our door and no newspaper’s half-baked insinuating detail passed me by that I think of the McCarthy era as inaugurating the postwar triumph of gossip as the unifying credo of the world’s oldest democratic republic. In Gossip We Trust. Gossip as gospel, the national faith. McCarthyism as the beginning not just of serious politics but of serious everything as entertainment to amuse the mass audience. McCarthyism as the first postwar flowering of the American unthinking that is now everywhere.”
― Philip Roth, I Married a Communist

“A rumor is usually a lie that the media can legally profit from.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The rule of thumb for all news operations is that stories are assigned their importance on the basis of what affects or interests the greatest number of one's readers or viewers. Depending on the nature of the newspaper or broadcast, the balance between what" affects "and what" interests "is quite different. The first criteria of a responsible newspaper such as The New York Times is going to be that which their readers need to know about their world that day — those developments that in one way or another might affect their health, their pocketbooks, the future of themselves and their children. The first criterion of the tabloid is that which" interests "its readers — gossip, sex, scandal.”
― Walter Cronkite, A Reporter's Life

“Our naivety has left us convinced that the people with whom we sometimes talk about other people behind their backs will never talk about us behind our backs.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The worst kind of losers are those who silently scavenge for your past mistakes and present them to the public as latest news.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, The Book of Maxims, Poems and Anecdotes

“When he was sixteen (1923), Peter got a job as copy boy on a New York tabloid and entered a saltier, more hard-bitten world. It was a roaring, lush, lousy tabloid. Everybody was drunk all the time. The managing editor hired girl reporters on condition they sleep with him. New staffs moved in and were mowed down like the Light Brigade. Chorus girls, debutantes, and widows suspected of murdering their husbands were perched on desks with their thighs showing to be photographed. An endless parade of cranks, freaks, ministers, actresses, and politicians moved through the big babbling room, day and night. The city editor went crazy one afternoon. So did his successor. And among the typewriters and the paste pots and the thighs, Peter walked with simple delight.

A young reporter took a liking to him, found he was homeless, and insisted he share an elegant bachelor apartment uptown. There were constant parties, starting at dawn and ending as the hush of twilight settled over the city. People went to work and went to parties until they got the two pursuits confused and never noticed the difference. Whisky was oxygen, women were furniture, thinking was masochism.”
― Jack Iams

“You are definitely not famous if only less than a million sane people are interested in your sex life.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Wondering about other people’s private affairs is a one-man gossip.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“It is still gossip even if everything that is said is true.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Though you can get smart from reading everything that a smart person writes, you cannot get famous from reading about everything that a famous person does or is said to have done.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, N for Nigger: Aphorisms for Grown Children and Childish Grown-ups

“We call talking about other people’s personal lives ‘gossip’ only if we aren’t or weren’t part of the conversation.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“I don’t mind my friends calling me “Thornes,” but the fact of people calling me “Prickly Thornes” draws the line.”
― Simi Sunny, The White Sirens

“I don’t mind my friends calling me 'Thornes,' but the fact of people calling me 'Prickly Thornes' draws the line.”
― Simi Sunny, The White Sirens

“Never trust a tabloid over a human being.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“Some facts are each useful to only one person.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“In spite of the concerted press campaign to transform me into some upstart wordsmith who had inexplicably won the pools ('Osborne mellows now he's on £1,000 a week'), I was not earning great sums from any of the three plays now that tow of them had finished their Broadway runs.”
― John Osborne, Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise

“Fiecare timp ar trebui judecat dupa faptele care l-au aprins.”
― Doina Ruști, Mâța Vinerii

“Heartless gossips pose as professional press, they get a few quotes and run with the story like Seabiscuit to the finish line. They’re nothing more than conmen, salesmen, pitchmen, pompous men professing to be of public service—and they have the freedom to do so. There’s no price to pay.”
― Pamela L Hamilton, Lady Be Good Lib/E: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale

“Heartless gossips pose as professional press, they get a few quotes and run with the story like Seabiscuit to the finish line. They’re nothing more than conmen, salesmen, pitchmen, pompous men professing to be of public service—and they have the freedom to do so. There’s no price to pay.”
― pamela hamilton, Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale

“The Invaders are in your very midst!’
The Newsman admits.
The People
start having fits
after paying him handsomely
for his services.”
― Roy Duffield, Bacchus Against the Wall