Time-Life’s People test issue openly imitated the scandal-sheet Enquirer format

Evidence

The test issue, developed before Stolley’s appointment, tended to confirm an intention to copy the Enquirer. On the cover was perennial gossip fodder: the marriage of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, both best known in the 1970s for their notoriously stormy relationship. To focus groups, as well as Time-Life’s board, the effort seemed to be aiming rather low. It “exuded a sleazy, tabloid quality, with its rough photographs and its typewriter type…there was even a picture of the Chiquita banana girl, with her breasts bared.” At a managing editor’s lunch, the words most frequently used were “sleazy” and “cheap.” Stolley would later allow that it “looked like a whorehouse magazine.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 759

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Supports the ‘Grafting & Growth’ article’s theme of the Enquirer’s tabloid lineage being mainstreamed by respectable publishers.