Leskie J Pinson

More on Weekly World News managing editor Leskie J Pinson (see below). The tabloid had long followed the exploits of Batboy, a West Virginia native who tragically resembles a cross between a boy and a bat. Batboy was often seen as a villain and then a tragically misunderstood figure. After the Sept. 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, I remember fondly a front page article in the Weekly World News when Batboy offered his services to the U.S. government to help track down Osama bin Laden. (Sadly the president does not share Batboy's sense of justice.) Batboy even inspired a Broadway musical. That led to this interview on the media watch dog program, On The Media:

BILL SLOAN: I think that the people at, at Weekly World News are really excited about this because even though Bat Boy [sic] is a made up character, it still lends an aura of respectability to the paper. MAN: Bat Boy is not made up, according to Weekly World News managing editor Leskie Pinson. LESKIE PINSON: Why would we want to do that? The verisimilitude of 47 pages would be thrown away if we tried to run some kind of a crazy phony story on one page, so it's not worth it for us. BILL SLOAN: I know that's not true. I know that Bat Boy is a creation. MAN: Cynics like Bill Sloan don't rattle Pinson. He insists that his paper's coverage of Bat Boy is very real and very expensive! LESKIE PINSON: You know we're a little bit different than some news organizations. They say they never pay for their stories. "We would never pay for a story!" some of 'em say. We know, but hey -- when it's a big special like the space alien shaking hands with the presidential candidate or the Bat with Al Gore, we're not afraid to go sometimes 6 figures, maybe 8 figures if you count both sides of the decimal point for a photograph like that.

"...6 figures, maybe 8 figures if you count both sides of the decimal point...." What a great line.