IF THERE'S a bible for tabloid reporters, "Thou shalt not let the truth get in the way of a story" might be its first commandment.
The same applies to Jack Vitek's "The Godfather of Tabloid: Generoso Pope Jr. and the National Enquirer." Ostensibly a biography of the founding father of the tabloids, it's sloppily written, light on facts and full of overzealous speculation.
But does it matter? This is the story of a guy who made his fortune with miracle diets, celebrity dirt and cover photos of famous dead people. If ever there were a tale worthy of tabloid treatment, it's Gene Pope Jr.'s life.
In fact, Vitek's slapdash style serves to enhance his unusual subject -- Pope was a dull man with a colorful legacy. He revolutionized American publishing and popular culture. His imprint can be seen on newsstands, sleazy celeb-blogs and fawning TV flack-fests such as "Access Hollywood."
Yet Pope was an unlikely pioneer. He was, writes Vitek, an antisocial three-pack-a-day smoker who hated to travel but loved "Hogan's Heroes." With the National Enquirer, he found his identity. He understood the pulse of the masses, and it made him a wealthy man.
Pope inherited the publishing gene from his father, Generoso Sr., who owned the New York Italian-language weekly Il Progresso in the 1930s and 1940s. This was a powerful position, and the senior Pope had one hand in local politics, the other in the mob.
Pope's reputed Mafia connection is one of Vitek's flimflam fixations. Another is the future publisher's schoolboy friendship with the soon-to-be-notorious attorney Roy Cohn.
There's no record that their relationship existed beyond young adulthood, but Vitek nevertheless makes veiled suggestions that perhaps they were more than friends.
"Cohn's homosexuality needs to be dealt with (though inevitably inconclusively) in the context of his early close relationship with Gene Pope," he writes. "No one has ever proposed that Pope was a homosexual . . . yet he was best friends with one of our culture's most famous gays."
Pope grew estranged from his family after his father's death in 1950, and after a quick stint as an intelligence officer for the CIA, he purchased the New York Enquirer for $75,000 in 1952 -- with financial help from mobster Frank Costello, the author says.
The paper struggled for years. Then Pope witnessed hundreds rubbernecking at the site of a car crash and inspiration struck.
