Inside the Globe - tabloid newspaper reporting

Washington Monthly, June, 1999 by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

Taking on the Tabs

It was time to start fighting back. One morning in October I found myself in the Denver Federal Building, sitting across from three federal agents who listened to my story of the Globe's attempt to pressure Steve Thomas. They were intrigued by it, and immediately began discussing whether or not they could convince the U.S. Attorney's Office to go after a media organization, since such pursuits were often public relations disasters. One of the agents suggested a sting operation to get the blackmail attempt on tape.

"Don't worry about that," I told them. "Why?" they asked. I opened my briefcase and pulled out a tape I had made with the telephone recording device Globe had bought me over a year before. "Because I've already got it on tape," I told the agents. "I've been taping them for months now."

To my surprise, days later, I learned that Steve Thomas had rejected the FBI's offer to investigate the Globe on his behalf. Without a victim, the government was powerless to move forward and the matter was dropped. Thomas' attorney, Margaret Miller, told The Washington Post that he "was tired of the Ramsey case and wanted to be left alone."

My guess was that Thomas was frightened of the Globe. The tabs are notoriously vicious to people who cross them. When Liz Taylor sued the Enquirer for $20 million plus punitive damages for falsely accusing her of "drinking up a storm," they didn't back off, but instead ran an even harsher story about her on the cover the next week. You'll notice that certain famous people get savaged in the tabloids all the time. Why? Often it's because they've taken a stand against the tabs, while others have agreed to work with them in exchange for freedom from such humiliations. Some celebrities actually make explicit arrangements, agreeing to fork over information about other celebs in exchange for complete protection from tabloid humiliation. In the trade, these people are known as "untouchables."

The tabs also have their own investigators, as I discovered while researching earlier efforts to fight them. A journalist named Rod Lurie, who wrote a magazine story on the tabs 10 years ago, suffered an incredible series of threats and intimidation. His phone records were illegally seized and his editors were threatened. In the article, Lurie exposed an Enquirer reporter for falsely reporting a celebrity to Child Protective Services for abuse when they came up dry with their sources. Despite the fact that it was a false allegation, the agency was required by law to respond to the tip with an investigation. When they did, the Enquirer got their story. When the reporter was exposed, he wasn't fired or forced out of the business. In fact, the reporter was Brian Williams, the Globe executive editor who had initially hired me (not to be confused with Brian Williams of NBC).

I soon realized the tabloids could write virtually any story they wanted as long as someone with authority would say it was possible.

Still, I decided that taking on the tabs was worth the risk. In mid-January, I delivered my tapes to CBS' "48 Hours" via Professor Michael Tracey. By the time Frost found out it was too late. "I'm very disappointed in you Jeffrey," he told me. The feeling was mutual, I told him. Although the story hit the wire after Howard Kurtz wrote about it on the front page of The Washington Post's Style section, what must have really burned Frost was his own words about his personal vendetta against the Ramseys. When the tapes played on "48 Hours" Frost heard himself say the kinds of magic words that make libel suits winnable: "The Globe and Tony Frost in particular, have more reason to go for the Ramseys," he said, "than the police have!" After I had worried for two years about saying something that would suggest a malicious intent against the Ramseys, it was Frost himself who ended up saying it.