"Extra Extra Read All About It! Mother Teresa's face found in cinnamon bun! Extra Extra! Man's pet cat Flopsy abducted by aliens! Extra!"
Sometimes Newspapers of a more questionable level of veracity publish news that is clearly bunk, in the case of alien abductions and yetis being found. Other times they'll print that might be true but seem to be kinda loopy and of questionable - toast burns in the likenesses historical figures for example. These stories are of course either complete fabrications in the former case (either made up journalists or via bored
Alan Fridge-esque submissions), or are just questionable coincidences.
The news industry calls this type of "news" 'Man Bites Dog', but seems rather more mundane some of these stories actually tend to be. This sort of publication shows up in fiction from time to time too, especially ones which heavily features either journalists or well known people (within their universe) frequently or where weird happening really do occur and these stories are true - or sometimes these stories are bizarre even for the setting.
Not necessarily related to
Doomy Dooms Of Doom.
Examples
Film
- In Men In Black Agent K says this sort of news is actually very trustworthy when it comes to tracking aliens.
Literature
- The Quibbler in Harry Potter is parody of the sort of Newspaper that focuses on this, also reports of a flying car got into the Muggle papers when Harry and Ron fly the Wesley Ford Anglia to Hogwarts. Most Muggles will have written off the latter as this.
- The competing paper in The Truth (Discworld), The Ankh-Morpork Inquirer, publishes these sort of articles.
- Andrew Looney's novel The Empty City features an elderly couple who are avid watchers of television and readers of the Weekly World News; when one of the latter's stories is that the Russians have developed a weapon that cranks up radiation levels from television to kill its watchers, they have to decided whether to abandon television or the Weekly World News.
Live Action TV
- Subverting this was the entire point of the TV series The Chronicle. Man goes to work at a tabloid, only to discover that all of their stories are true.
Music
Tabletop Games
- Enjoy
the Forgotten Realms tabloid. Titles like "Bane vs. Cyric — Winner Take All!!!!" and "Dire Pandas From Kara-Tur Invade the Unapproachable East!" — and much worse.
- The back cover of GURPS Illumnati is in the style of one of these, and the text makes frequent reference to the idea that 'everything you read in the tabloids is true'.
- Atlas Games' Pandemonium (Adventures in Tabloid World)
- TSR's Amazing Engine setting Tabloid
- Lurid Tales of Doom! for West End Games' Ghostbusters is the Trope Namer.
Real Life
- Weekly World News was a satirical newspaper that published this sort of story until it folded. People genuinely believed them sometimes, even though they often recycled stories like "Bat Boy Found in Cave".
- This troper recalls seeing a Weekly World News story: "20 Senators admit they are space aliens." Same ol', same ol', until the same story appeared in the Seattle Times a week or so later.
- The Daily Sport in the UK is made up of mostly pictures of topless ladies and this sort of "News", such as World War II bombers being found on the moon.
- And when an astronomer protested that he couldn't see it: "WORLD WAR II BOMBER FOUND ON MOON VANISHES!"
- While The Sun is not the most erudite of newspapers in Britain it tends not to focus much on this sort of journalism, however one stand-out incident came from a March 1986 issue with the headline "FREDDIE STAR ATE MY HAMSTER!". This "story" has followed Freddie Star around since.
