The way news is given and received greatly impacts the viewer’s own opinions and way of thinking, thus is why most media use propaganda to appeal to those they hope to be interested. But not every source is truthful or is even necessarily significant. Our culture tends to revolve around more dramatic events that may not even directly affect them (i.e. celebrities, food fads, fashion, etc.) Companies, such as National Enquirer Magazine, tend to revolve their “news” around celebrity scandals or viral events for entertainment. Being a magazine for pure gossip, National Enquirer had a total of 360,612 copies sold in 2014. Through their use of propaganda types such as name-calling and distortion of data, they are able to continue to make profit off information that is pure gossip and may not even be truthful.
The National Enquirer is known for their over the top headliners. This would be their
National Enquirer: Then (1960)
National Enquirer: Now (2016)
use of name-calling propaganda. Their headliners typically focus on a celebrity (or celebrities) and give a headliner either demeaning them or flat out insulting them. This typically draws the attention of readers, making them curious as to why such harsh words are being used to describe people they would typically see as being role models and good hearted. The main point for the use of this propaganda is to play with reader’s emotions and curiosity, forcing them to buy said magazine to feed their minds with things that sound interesting and wouldn’t expect. Their covers have used this type of propaganda for quite a long time. In a 2015 post on their website regarding vintage covers, examples of their propaganda use can be traced back to the 1960’s. Though their headliners were much worse then, they have yet to let go of the unnecessary use of slander.
As for the content of the news, National Enquirer typically gives elaborate stories that are both dramatized and “entertaining”. The content themselves is considered distortion of data/ out of context propaganda due to the lack of strong sources, misuse of images, and presenting only parts of a story. The magazine claims that for disclosure purposes that they don’t name their sources but rarely discuss the person’s relation to said celebrity. As for the images used to go along with the stories, they aren’t always clear or they depict of an event that doesn’t correlate to the story (i.e. talking about a cheating scandal yet using an image of the celebrity walking on the streets for a photo shoot). As for the story itself, the content would contain information that may have already been known to the public (i.e. Britney Spears’ melt down) then describing the events without information (i.e. Talking about Britney’s melt down but not explaining why it happened, only that it did happen) or be given information that can’t be fully validated. The use of this type of propaganda is mainly for convincing the audience to believe in their content and to keep them interested. This allows them to toy with the reader’s emotions thus leading them to wanting to read more content, securing future profit.
A more recent example of this would be of their article regarding presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, and his supposed “sex scandal”. The article discusses how 5 different
women had claimed to have had met with Cruz for affairs, how it all began, how much they were paid, and how he would go about meeting them and hiding it all. The images of the women that are blurred out to hide their identity appear to be head shots that were posed or taken out of context. They don’t have the appearance of paparazzi like image (where they are taken at moments without their notice) or a source from their personal lives (i.e. work images, social media such as Facebook, Instagram, etc.), rather they appear to be taken in a photo shoot, as a request ( i.e. an event where journalists would ask for a portrait shot), and or taken from scenes of a show or movie. The article had created mass gossip (what the magazine is known for) thus getting back to Ted Cruz. This would then lead to him making a public announcement that the story was false.
National Enquirers sources aren’t always reliable. Their main source of information come from claims that can be sent to them via. their website. Their “Got A Tip?” button 
allows for you to provide your name, email, and phone number in which you can then provide what your tip is about. Due to this, there have been rumors circulating that Cruz’s opponent, Donald Trump, was behind the wild accusation. Whether that is true or not hasn’t been found yet. Though it shows how easily anyone could give out a story about any celebrity whether truth or not.
Ted Cruz Video: Claim that it was Donald Trump
National Enquirer’s use of propaganda result in not only misinformation but also the spread of ignorance among it’s viewers. The magazine presents the classic proof of media’s reliability and how hard it is to gain awareness of news that truly matters. National Enquirer and other magazines alike, promote useless news for entertainment, influence viewers into believing that said news is important, and prevents the spread of news that would benefit the people. How is it done? All through propaganda.
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