Book 'Em: Tabloid Strikes Gold With Mug Shots

One thing's for sure: It's profitable

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 7, 2009 6:00 PM CST

(Newser) – The Slammer, a North Carolina tabloid that gleefully prints local mug shots and crime reports, is flying off newsstands, and whether it’s helpful or shameful, it’s certainly profitable. “I don’t think (the Slammer) deserves the ‘journalism’ title,” publisher Isaac Cornetti, himself a former jailbird, tells the Christian Science Monitor. But it, and others like it, provide voyeuristic entertainment—and maybe even a public service.

Cornetti hopes the paper can be “the kind of wake-up call that I wish I’d had when I was younger.” But many argue the ridicule the Slammer heaps on not-yet-convicted subjects is unethical—barely a “step up from the stocks,” grumbles the editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. But Cornetti says the only complaints he gets are from perps upset they didn’t make the paper.

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (2)]

A detail from the cover of the Nov. 7-14 issue of "The Slammer."

A detail from the cover of the Oct. 24-31 edition of "The Slammer."

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It’s really painful to know that so many publications are struggling terribly and something as schlocky as this is succeeding.
- Bob Steele, journalism ethics expert at the Poynter Institute

You look at this paper, and you’re amazed by the amount of illegal stuff going on. The appeal is voyeurism and schadenfreude, and it has redeeming qualities, too.
- Isaac Cornetti, publisher of The Slammer

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Book 'Em: Tabloid Strikes Gold With Mug Shots