A Tabloid Exclusive

Hacknslash Paperclip was one of those rare tabloid journalists who became a familiar face and ever-popular by-line to his loyal readership. In his heyday there was – it seemed - not a single celebrity scandal that he was not involved in, in some way. The familiar Paperclip by-line, it seemed, was almost a part of every celebrity malfeasance expose as the obligatory awkward malefactor and family posed reconciliation and printed abject apology for that moment of weakness that would have continued for several more years if not for the intrepid journalistic skills of the great Hacknslash Paperclip.

Paperclip had no interest in the philosophy or theory of journalism and treated the academicisation of his trade as little more than a poor joke. By way of example: Not once, he once said in an interview, had he ever stopped to wonder why, in his heyday, his huge readership (massive even by tabloid standards) should be even in the slightest bit be interested in the shenanigans of the rich and famous, or even have any interest the rich or famous as a species. He just knew that every week his audience all wanted to read – or at least look at the pictures – of someone in the public eye falling from grace, the greater the fall or more spectacular the tumble the better.

Once asked how he managed to get so many exclusives, Paperclip said that he simply assumed that no-one could resist temptation (as his own seven marriages seemed to avow) and that everyone in the public eye, no matter how clean cut, straight-laced or simple and straightforward their public image, would one day succumb to temptation and on that day, he Hacknslash Paperclip would be the one lurking behind the rosebushes, or hidden in the wardrobe, to catch that fall from grace for the exclusive smug schadenfreude of his readers.