Tabloid history

Spent another day with microfilm, the New York Daily News and the New York Post from the first few months of 1969. Today, both papers are considered to border(?) on tabloid, but I think a distinction must be made. At least in the late '60s, the Daily News is far more sensational, in both headlines and reporting style than the Post. If anything, the Post is far stodgier and conservative (regardless of the editorial endorsement of Herman Badillo Sr. in the mayoral primary)-- sensational and tabloid-esque in a, "Hrumph, look what those kids are doing now" sort of way. Or maybe it was, as one of my committee members said, "sensibly liberal"? I think the best description would be old-school, New Deal Democratic, whereas the Daily News was inching more and more to the right every day.

Regardless of political slant, they both, unlike, say, the Times, capture the reasons why Fun City wasn't very much fun. Murders, rapes, school riots (high school, universities), garbage strikes and a fabulously ridiculous mayoral race set the city up to spiral out of control in the next decade. Even the Yankees and the Mob were in trouble. That never means anything good.

All this chaos, coupled with the breakdown of these two NY institutions, made me think of some dialogue from The Sopranos:

Uncle Junior: What happened to the '50s? Even rival families were able to settle their differences amicably.

Tony: Yeah, I remember that picture of Albert Anastasia lying there all amicable on the barbershop floor.

This explains why we look back nostaligically to the City in the 1960s, as in, "Gee, the murder rate in 2005 was at its lowest level since..." I guess we always do remember better than it was, even when confronted with evidence that proves otherwise. Of course, if you only read the Daily News, you'd wonder how anyone managed to avoid being shot, stabbed, choked, and/or chased.