Original subtitles

-At the start of the '90s, TV news goes tabloid.

-That was the moment John Bobbitt realized

his penis was cut off.

-Sex scandals, gruesome murders.

They saw themselves as kind of like pirates and raiders.

-We changed the whole fabric of network news.

-Rules are rewritten.

-Checkbook journalism.

They're paying for interviews. - We were all pay.

-And that's when you struck your deal with "A Current Affair?"

- Yes. - Reporters go rogue.

-We have those nudes.

-[ Gasps ]

-No one was more despised than Steve Dunleavy.

-The public sees a chance to cash in.

-I was offered a lot of money to do things.

Yes, I took the money.

-You've been accused of being a pimp.

-Get that [bleep] cameras off.

-And television news will never be the same.

-We'll do it live! It!

♪♪

[ Dial-up modems screeching ]

♪♪

-Good evening.

-For decades, the nightly news in America

is a serious affair.

...President Reagan's -The White House releases

key documents.

-In the Persian Gulf today...

-But in the '90s, it becomes a current affair.

-Cops say that instead of preaching the gospel,

he was throwing panty parties.

-Beginning with "A Current Affair,"

so-called serious news gives way

to a new kind of television journalism.

-Get out of my face.

-And the story that will become a watershed moment

in this transformation centers on a violent love triangle

happening on Long Island, New York.

-Watching the Buttafuocos has become something

of a public spectacle. - Joey Buttafuoco.

Joey Buttafuoco...

[ Indistinct talking ]

-Mary Jo says she and her husband

are more recognized than Charles and Diane.

-For this housewife, tabloid news

will turn her personal tragedy into a national spectacle.

♪♪

-It was just a normal, regular, every single day of my life

type of a day.

I'm Mary Jo Buttafuoco, and in May of 1992,

I became the fodder for tabloid TV for years and years.

I was going to work on my back yard.

I wanted to paint this bench. [ Doorbell rings ]

And the doorbell rang.

I see a kid, a teenager standing there.

And she said, "Are you Mrs. Buttafuoco?"

I said, "Yes."

And she said, "I need to tell you

that your husband is having an affair."

-What happens next will turn Mary Jo,

her husband and a young woman

nicknamed the "Long Island Lolita"

into household names.

But the story of how America's news goes from bookish

to Buttafuoco begins with another familiar name,

Rupert Murdoch.

Back in the '80s, Murdoch's tabloid newspapers

are filled with stories just as juicy

and tantalizing as Mary Jo's.

-Murdoch inherited a paper called Adelaide News

in Australia from his father,

and then from there he starts to become extremely successful

turning papers into tabloids.

I'm Reece Peck. I'm the author of "Fox Populism."

I'm a professor at the College of Staten Island.

One of the keys to Murdoch's success

was his introduction of the Page 3 Girls,

nude models.

-These tactics helped Murdoch build a tabloid empire

in Australia and the U.K.

-Then he has his sights set on America.

-Murdoch buys the "New York Post" for $30 million,

and quickly transforms it into his kind of newspaper.

-Of course, it played on all the classic tabloid themes,

you know, gruesome murders, sex scandals,

bizarre events like UFOs.

I think the all time tabloid headline

is "The New York Post's" headless body in a topless bar

because that blends sex with murder

In this punchy, puny five-word statement.

-Murdoch's approach to journalism is to publish

what sells... glossy pictures, big print

and stories about sex and violence.

But for him, newspapers are not enough.

-Today, confirmation of the largest single broadcast station

transaction in history. It's part of an even...

-Murdoch decides to do something that has never been done before,

inject his tabloid newspaper sensibility into a TV news show.

-The deal calls for Murdoch to pay some $2 billion

for all Metromedia television.

-You take the networks news at the time,

legitimate, you know, mainstream network, local news scene.

Everybody had to cover the same stories.

If you had ideas, if you wanted to be creative,

if you wanted to approach a story

from a different direction, you couldn't.

-I'm Burt Kearns.

I spent the greater part of the 1990s

as a tabloid television producer,

and I wrote a book called "Tabloid Baby."

When Rupert Murdoch started his television news operation,

he didn't bring in network people from America.

He brought in newspaper people from Australia.

Murdoch took the best that he had and said,

Well, well, mate, now I'm starting television.

Do your thing with television.

-They had a very different philosophy

of journalism or outlook, right?

They looked at the American news scene as very austere,

very boring, very drab.

And they saw themselves as kind of like pirates and raiders.

You know, they brag about that,

like, they're going to conquer the news market.

-The captain of Rupert Murdoch's pirate invasion

is Peter Brennan,

a brash producer born in Australia.

Brennan will become known

as the godfather of American tabloid TV.

-God is the perfect word for him.

I'm Jeremy Louwerse, and I was a producer

for "Inside Edition" in the early '90s.

No doubt about it, Peter Brennan is the God.

He's the Messiah. He's the guy that started the genre.

-Murdoch immediately hires Peter Brennan,

another Australian to produce,

and they recruit a news anchor called Maury Povich.

-Maury was the anchorman at WTTG in Washington

and married to Connie Chung,

who would eventually go on to anchor

the "CBS Nightly News."

-I wasn't your traditional anchor reporter.

I was never satisfied with a minute and a half stories.

I didn't have a great reputation

of being a cookie cutter anchor man.

And that makes Maury a key ingredient in the show

Rupert Murdoch and Peter Brennan are cooking up.

♪♪

-An ex-porn palace turns into a house of prayer,

and the community, instead of being relieved, is angry.

-I definitely believe this is a cult.

- "A Current Affair" debuts in New York City

in the summer of 1986.

-It was an immediate ratings hit.

The famous "A Current Affair" graphic,

where the pyramid comes in and you hear the kagang,

that was breaking the mold.

-Some experts are convinced

that this is truly a home to demons.

But is it? We'll take in our own exorcist tonight.

It became, if they want to call it,

lightning in a jar or a perfect storm.

We were off on a ride that I'll never forget.

-This bloody Hollywood murder scene...

-The show tells stories that network news dismissed

as tabloid rubbish.

- Life and death of Adult movie

Super stud John Holmes.

Peter had this great vision that all these stories

that regular newscasts were putting in the trash can

were stories that our viewers would want

to see, those classic Shakespearean

themes of conflict and lust and drama.

-While "A Current Affair" recorded

in a New York City TV studio,

the stories that make it on the air

are decided in a bar across the street.

-It was called "The Racing Club, and you have to understand.

The Australians, they can drink beer from dawn to dusk.

I mean, a lot of the times we would be across

the street early in the day and Peter would get out his pen

and start writing down the line up with the show.

And my wife used to say all the time,

"Maury, you cannot keep up with these people."

I said, "Why?" She says, "Well, you would come

home around 8:00, 8:30 every night,

and you were trying to open up a cabinet

and you missed the... you missed the handle three times."

[ Laughs ]

I said, "Well, you're right."

Whoever had killed her had left it cruelly exposed.

She was found naked from the waist down.

- "A Current Affair" quickly gains a reputation

for being able to break new stories,

especially when those stories are rife with sex and violence.

-The biggest early on story was the Preppy Murder story

in early 1987 with Robert Chambers.

He had rough sex with this girl in Central Park, and she died.

We owned that story.

-Things just weren't supposed to end this way,

not for Jennifer Levin, not for Robert Chambers.

-The crowning jewel of that story was

one of our reporters, Rafael Abramowitz,

had come across a tape

that Robert Chambers had made right before his trial started.

And you saw the video of Robert Chambers

tearing off the head of a doll.

-My name is the...!

Oops.

[ Laughter ]

I think I killed her.

-And "A Current Affair" ran that tape.

As soon as that story came out, the ratings were huge.

Rupert immediately syndicated "A Current Affair"

throughout the country.

- "A Current Affair" took lessons from Australia

and taught them to America.

They knew how it worked.

I don't think America knew how tabloid TV worked.

-They definitely broke from the news culture in the U.S.,

which was much more grounded on

these kind of professional values of journalism.

-Sometime around four in the morning,

they left Dorian's and made their way into Central Park.

-Along with telling stories ignored by traditional TV news,

"A Current Affair" doesn't look or sound like those other shows.

It incorporates music, sound effects and actors,

things that the mainstream news networks consider off limits.

-They did reenactments.

I don't think you would ever see

the network news at that time doing reenactments.

-But what really distinguishes "A Current Affair"

is the performance of its host, Maury Povich.

-We'll be talking live to the irrepressible Zsa Zsa Gabor,

who, as you saw, has just taken, rather,

married her eighth husband.

-Unlike network anchors,

Maury personally engages in every story.

-If you've watched "A Current Affair"

for any length of time,

you know, I hate, I can't stand UFO stories.

I mean, I can't stand them.

A lot of anchor people, network anchor people,

local anchor, they would introduce a story.

"And Joe Smith has a report from Dallas."

And they would... and you would

drop your head all of a sudden.

Why the hell would anchor people drop their head

as they introduce the story?

Why don't you look at the people?

Why don't you look at the audience,

for crying out loud?

-Tabloid papers are known for their visceral language

in writing, right?

And so the way you translate that in a TV news program

is to have the host be much more emotionally expressive.

And one thing about Maury Povich, you know,

he was known to have the most expressive

eyebrows in the industry.

-A physical training program for cadets

so tough, they call it aerobic death.

-Maury's honest expressiveness

is shocking to news traditionalists

while being refreshing to a new generation of viewers.

- Another major day... - He's a complete departure

from the voice of God-type anchors

who dominate the network news.

-Maury changed what a television host could be.

-For three years, "A Current Affair"

is the only tabloid news alternative on TV.

And this is why "A Current Affair"

is so important, because it stands

as Murdoch's first successful attempt

to apply this kind of British tabloid style of the newsstand

in print that he was a master of

to the realm of television, to the medium of television,

which is so important, again, to American culture.

-Riding on that success,

two new tabloid shows hit the airwaves...

-Tonight on "Hard Copy"...

- just in time for the first big sex scandal of the '90s

-The rape trial of William Kennedy Smith

begins tomorrow.

And as you can imagine, Palm Beach is going crazy.

- "A Current Affair" with Maury Povich.

-At the start of the decade,

"A Current Affair" is not just changing the way news

is gathered and reported on TV,

but what's considered news in the first place.

-This is a show that does stories

about ordinary people

who are placed in extraordinary circumstances.

-When it comes to turning ordinary people

into extraordinary spectacles, no one quite compares

to "A Current Affair's" legendary reporter,

Steve Dunleavy.

-Steve Dunleavy was the ultimate tabloid reporter.

He was known as Rupert Murdoch's alter ego.

He had a pompadour, bespoke pinstripe suits,

and he was hated and despised by all of his competition

as this lowlife reporter who would do anything for a story

but beloved by anyone who worked with him.

-You have to understand, Steve Dunleavy

was the kind of reporter that when he was

16 years old reporting in Australia,

his father, who worked at a rival paper,

was able to get some information before Steve got it.

Steve went outside and punctured the tires of his father's car

so his father wouldn't get to his paper

before Steve got to his.

Steve Dunleavy.

-As a former print reporter for Rupert Murdoch's

"New York Post," Dunleavy knows how to deliver

the sensationalism viewers crave,

and he's instrumental in making "A Current Affair"

the most watched news program on TV.

-In to 1990, "A Current Affair's" ratings

were going through the roof.

-All of a sudden, we got bigger and bigger and bigger.

-Two copycat programs

are now cashing in on the tabloid market...

-Hello, I'm David Frost.

Welcome to the first edition of "Inside Edition."

- the more respectable "Inside Edition"

and "Hard Copy."

-The women who paid for the gigolo

say they are worth every penny of it.

-Hard Copy" was the dirtiest.

It was... it was fairly dirty.

"A Current Affair" not as dirty,

And "Inside" was a little cleaner.

-As the competition among tabloid TV heats up,

"A Current Affair" loses some of its brightest stars.

Maury leaves to pursue a career in daytime talk.

-Brian, you are not the father.

-Then the godfather of tabloid TV, Peter Brennan

along with Burt Kearns, go to work for "Hard Copy."

Steve Dunleavy remains at "A Current Affair"

just as a huge scandal ignites in April of 1991.

-I'm sitting in my office at "Hard Copy

and I get a call from a stringer,

a news stringer down in Florida.

He said, "Burt, I can't talk,

but there's been a rape at the Kennedy mansion in Palm Beach

and word is that the senator's involved."

Click.

♪♪

-William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of JFK,

RFK and Ted Kennedy is accused of raping a woman

at the family mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.

- William Kennedy... - "Hard Copy is first

to break the story, angering one of it's competitors.

-Steve Dunleavy was going nuts

because he knew what a story this was.

-Dunleavy goes to work.

-As the exploding scandal goes into day seven,

reportedly the alleged victim said the bastard raped me.

-Dunleavy beats out "Hard Copy"

by hunting down Michelle Cassone,

a woman claiming to have witnessed Ted Kennedy

exposing himself at the mansion on the same night

as the alleged rape.

Armed with explicit photos of Cassone,

Dunleavy invites her to New York for an interview

where he plans to use the pictures to discredit her.

-She came to New York. He brought her to the 21 Club.

They had lunch. They had a liquid lunch.

They drank, and they drank some more.

And he got her drunk.

And then he brought her up to the "Current Affair" offices,

and they went to a conference room where they had

two cameras waiting.

-You wouldn't posed nude for anyone.

-I would not pose nude for anybody.

That's not my character.

-Let me show you something.

You have posed nude.

-Where did you ever...

[ Gasps ]

-Her was a woman who was saying that Senator Ted Kennedy

was walking around semi-naked.

She should be confronted with her lie.

I showed a pictures of her being nude.

In fact, pictures of her doing a little bit more

than just being nude.

Oh, Michelle.

-Dunleavy's report raises doubts about Cassone in the public eye.

-Turn those [bleep] cameras off now.

More important for Dunleavy's career,

the interview feels ratings

when Cassone attacks him mid interview.

-Oww!

-And for those of you who have been calling to ask,

his finger is healing nicely.

-The rules then were different.

I don't think Steve Dunleavy

could get away with some of the things

that he did then now.

[ Indistinct talking ]

-For the privilege of being humiliated on national TV,

Cassone is paid $1,000 by "A Current Affair."

But that she got paid at all generates criticism

from traditional TV news outlets.

-Checkbook journalism.

They're paying for interviews.

People couldn't believe that we were paying for interviews.

And when that happened,

that's how you became a true tabloid show.

-Of course, we got criticized from all the media critics

that we were paying for news and things.

"60 Minutes" was paying for news.

They were all paying for news.

They would say, "Oh, no, we didn't pay.

The entertainment division pay. We didn't pay.

Not the news division. The entertainment division pay."

We were all paying, you know, but because we were tabloid,

you know, we were... we were the poster child.

-Trading cash for an exclusive interview soon becomes

more than just a question of journalistic ethics.

Witnesses in high profile court cases

begin having their credibility attacked

for getting paid to first tell their story on TV,

including at the trial of William Kennedy Smith.

- Monday. - And that's when you

struck your deal with "A Current Affair,"

isn't that correct? - Yes.

-Isn't it a fact, Ms. Mercer, that this whole program

was created just to embarrass the Kennedy family?

-Steve found the main witness in the case,

a woman named Anne Mercer,

who had driven the victim home after the rape.

"A Current Affair" paid her $40,000 to tell her story.

-I turned to him and I said,

"Oh, you look like you're having a good time."

And... - Well, that was great

for ratings for "A Current Affair."

But when it came time for the trial

and Mercer's testimony was stricken

because she had been paid $40,000 for "A Current Affair,"

and when William Kennedy Smith was acquitted,

his attorney at the news conference

thanked Steve Dunleavy for getting his client off.

-So you guys later.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Cassone's $1,000 or even Mercer's $40,000

will soon seem almost quaint

when compared to what "A Current Affair"

will spend turning Mary Jo Buttafuoco

into a media spectacle.

-I never, ever, ever, in my wildest dreams could imagine

that I would now become the focus of the tabloids.

I never wanted to be famous.

I never wanted to be infamous.

-But that's exactly what happens when a teenage girl

shows up at her door claiming to be sleeping

with Mary Jo's husband.

-What? What?

I said, "Look, I'll. I'll let Joe know

that you came by."

I turned my head and to open my door,

and that's when my head exploded.

♪♪

The first thing I remember when I first was coming to

was a nurse was standing right over my face.

"Mary Jo, Mary Jo.

You're at the Nassau County Medical Center.

You've been shot. We're going to take care of you."

And I'm like hearing this.

I've got tubes in me. I can't talk. I don't know.

I didn't know it at the time,

but right then and there, that life that I had was done.

Gone.

-Come on, guys. Give me a little room here, huh?

-Before tabloid TV,

Mary Jo's story may have only made the local newspaper.

Now it's being broadcast around the world.

-Mary Jo made a miraculous recovery Wednesday,

and provided police with information about the shooting.

-The Perpetrator, -Amy Fisher,

who shot Mary Jo Buttafuoco in the head

after she developed a near-fatal attraction

for her husband, Joey Buttafuoco.

-Mary Jo, who still had a bullet in her head,

would not believe that her husband had an affair.

-Along with Amy Fisher, only they know

what really triggered the shooting.

-The story, with its oblivious wife, sleazy husband

and attractive teenage seductress

is blood in the water for the sharks on tabloid shows

who quickly dub Amy the Long Island Lolita.

-All of a sudden the news trucks start showing up

and the vans and the reporters and the and lookie loos.

-And with the tabloid shows parked out front,

checkbooks at the ready,

Mary Jo eventually names her price.

-Yes, I was offered a lot of money to do things.

And yes, I took the money.

-In the quest for ratings,

the three tabloid TV shows of the early '90s

are locked in fierce competition...

-The end of Jimmy Swaggart.

-I have sinned against you, My Lord.

-New questions about Michael Jackson's

drug treatment.

- This morning... - with Sex scandals

and celebrity gossip leading their nightly news lineups.

-Hugh Grant was seen picking up a known prostitute.

- "A Current Affair's" star reporter Steve Dunleavy

has built a reputation for doing anything

to out scoop his rivals

and becomes a key weapon in the tabloid wars.

Soon, his old friends at "Hard Copy,

Burt Kearns and Peter Brennan, will learn for themselves

how far Dunleavy will go to win.

-October 1991, the big story out of Hollywood

was that Elizabeth Taylor was marrying Larry Fortensky

at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.

-It's just 24 hours before Elizabeth Taylor

walks down the aisle once again.

-It was occurring on a Saturday.

On Friday morning I'm at my desk around 11:30 A.M.

[ Knocks on chair ]

Brennan knocks on the door.

"Hey, Dunleavy's in town.

Come on. We're gonna meet him for lunch.

-Kearns and Brennan meet Dunleavy

at a Los Angeles eatery for drinks where Dunleavy

starts complaining about work.

-He said "Oh, this is terrible.

You know, I really... I wanted to cover

this Liz Taylor story, but they're not making

a big deal out of it at 'A Current Affair.'

These people don't know what a story is.

They don't know what they're doing.

This is just terrible."

So we continue to drink.

And about 8:00, we had been drinking for about eight hours.

Steve said, "Look, I'm not feeling very well.

I've got to head back to my hotel."

Now we continue to drink through the evening.

-The next morning, tired and hung over.

The two aren't in top form to cover

Elizabeth Taylor's wedding, just as Dunleavy had planned.

-All the media was at the gates to the Neverland Ranch.

We had a producer there. We didn't have a reporter.

And then on Monday, we, of course,

we're sitting there and we wanted to see

what "A Current Affair" had.

And the show opens with Steve Dunleavy

hanging out of a helicopter

over the Neverland Ranch covering the Liz Taylor wedding.

-[ Screaming ]

-I don't know whether you can say to that right now,

but that appears to be Liz Taylor in the yellow dress.

She's approaching the gazebo, and that is where

the ceremony will take place.

-Our old pal came to Los Angeles from New York

to get us drunk and neutralize us

so he could get the scoop and beat us on the story.

All's fair in love, war and news gathering.

-And that will certainly prove true as the tabloids battle

over the story of the Long Island Lolita,

Amy Fisher shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco in the head.

- "Hard Copy" was covering this story on a daily basis

throughout the month of May.

Then we get word that "A Current Affair"

had scooped us unbelievably.

"A Current Affair" purchases a tape of what is

purportedly Amy Fisher in an act of prostitution.

To promote their exclusive sex tape,

"A Current Affair" teases the upcoming segment

by leaking images to the tabloid newspapers the day

before the show is to air.

But by announcing the story early,

"A Current Affair" opens the door for "Hard Copy"

to play some hardball.

-The light went off over Peter Brennan's head,

and he kind of had the idea.

Syndicated shows at the time

with record their shows earlier in the day

and then feed it out over the satellite

to the affiliates around the country.

So we just directed our control room

to steal the satellite feed from "A Current Affair."

We took our 10 seconds or whatever they allowed us to use,

the lawyers allowed us to use, and then we hired

a couple of actors, got them onto a bed,

and we recreate it in black and white fuzzy video.

So we had a package that included a bit of a sex tape,

a bit of the still photos in the newspapers,

which we shook and moved in from the cameras

that looked like it was video and our reenactment,

and we said tonight, exclusive the Amy Fisher sex tape.

-Because "Hard Copy" airs a half hour

earlier than "A Current Affair,"

they managed to steal the exclusive.

-There was bedlam.

It made headlines that "Hard Copy" had committed

an act of piracy unseen in the history of television,

stealing a satellite signal.

They were calling me from "A Current Affair"

saying, your dead, your career is over.

The executive producer started screaming

and running around in circles.

Somebody was punching holes in the wall,

and in the back standing against the wall,

they tell us, Steve Dunleavy just nodding,

saying, "Touché."

-The original sex tape was reportedly sold

to "A Current Affair" for over $10,000.

And soon, nearly everyone in the Amy Fisher-Buttafuoco circle

will try and cash in by selling stories.

-I really had no time to recover because of the media.

We were a cash cow.

We even had one of my housekeepers,

who was not working for us at the time I got shot,

She went on "Donahue" and lied and said,

Joey chased her all around the house.

And I got furious because she never met him.

He was at work. He never...

And people were doing that.

People were coming out of the woodwork

and telling stories,

and there was no verification.

-The old saying, you know, never let the facts

get in the way of a good story.

And I think too often this checkbook journalism

breeds a type of news that's based on rumors

and not necessarily facts, because if someone's

incentivized to give you something so juicy,

it's such a great story, it's, possibly,

it's not true.

-Nervous parents remain silent as they arrive

to hear the fate of their teenage daughter Amy Fisher.

-The tabloid coverage of their story is relentless,

and it seems like everyone is watching,

including the judge in Fisher's criminal trial

who sets the teenager's bail at $2 million

persuaded by speculation and tabloid TV

that she's a flight risk.

-These production companies put up the money

for this in some way.

Now, I specifically asked her yesterday.

-Fisher isn't the only one fielding offers

to make a deal with the devil in the City of Angels.

-I started getting letters,

and there were letters back there,

not emails, from production companies.

If I do this, I get to tell my side of the story

because it up to now it's been Joey and Amy,

Joey and Amy, Joey and Amy.

I was lost in this whole thing.

-Wow.

You really did it when you were 12?

-Just eight months after Mary Jo was shot in the head,

ABC, CBS and NBC each released their own made-for-TV movie.

- Ever been with an older guy? - Unstoppable.

-Whatever Amy wants, Amy gets.

-Insatiable.

-Alright. Hey, look.

Come on.

Give me a smile. Come on.

-In the CBS version,

which was our version, of course,

Joey didn't have an affair.

It was... he was just a nice guy who knew her.

The dopey wife believed everything he said

because he told me he had nothing to do with her.

He swore to me on our children's lives,

and I believed him.

-While the CBS movie helps pay

for some of Mary Jo's legal bills,

mostly it brings more unwanted media attention.

Mary Jo begins to feel like nothing can cut off interest

in her story, but she's wrong.

-I sprung up in a silent scream, and holding myself

and I couldn't stop bleeding.

-That's when John Bobbitt discovered

his penis had been severed.

-By the summer of 1993,

"A Current Affair" and other tabloid shows

have turned the Buttafuocos into international celebrities.

But it's becoming obvious that Joey is enjoying

the limelight more than Mary Jo.

-He's definitely a celebrity.

He's a character, and a celebrity.

-Joey is liking all this attention.

I'm not understanding this,

but I'm too ill and just trying to get through each day.

- It's my half brother. - And when I would say to him,

"Stop talking to them. Shut up!"

I get the they've done this to us, Mary Jo. They did this.

So I'm going to do everything I can.

We're going to monetize on this.

I'm just giving them what they want.

-Surely the Guinness Book of Records one day

will list the name Buttafuoco.

-But then a news story temporarily severs

the tabloids fascination with Joey Buttafuoco.

-The four-year marriage of John and his South American wife

Lorena was rocky, to say the least.

I sprung up in silent scream and holding myself,

and I couldn't stop bleeding.

-Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband's penis

while he slept.

-On January 23, 1993, John and Lorena Bobbitt

make headlines after Lorena amputates

part of his genitals in retaliation

for years of alleged rape and abuse.

-I think the first story to be on air

that really made me raise my eyebrows was John Wayne Bobbitt,

a man who had his manhood cut off.

That's when I realized nothing was off limits.

-The organ was miraculously reattached,

and ever since, John has become a cottage industry of T-shirts,

movie deals and media appearances.

-Bobbit turned his infamy into profit

making TV appearances

and acting in pornographic films.

-The Bobbitts get paid for exclusive interviews

to the tabloid news shows,

which are now paying out big money to anyone with a story

they hope will boost their ratings.

-I want to tell people exactly what happened.

You know, I'm not the bad guy.

I didn't rape my wife and I didn't beat my wife.

-My bosses, that's all they cared about was ratings.

There's nothing bigger than ratings,

especially in the world of tabloid television.

-Exclusives with the Bobbitts give "Inside Edition"

a boost in their numbers.

- just how turbulent it was.

-But finding stories that will deliver

blockbuster ratings night after night,

five nights a week becomes an increasingly difficult task.

-Alan Masters was a big shot in Willow Springs,

a town where men ruled everything.

-The self-confessed nymphomaniac charged with prostitution.

-When "A Current Affairs" ratings hit an all time low,

they decided to return to a story that always worked,

the Long Island Lolita.

-Just when you thought you'd heard the last

from Amy Fisher and Joe Buttafuoco,

the latest bombshell in the case against the alleged lover

of the Long Island Lolita, Joey and the jury.

Joey Buttafuocoa is back in the news

when he gets charged with the statutory rape of Amy Fisher.

-The media had gotten so crazy with us

that they became a demand for Joey

to be held accountable for what happened.

-Peter and I were working back at "A Current Affair."

We had taken over "A Current Affair,"

working with Steve Dunleavy again.

We were brought in because Rupert Murdoch knew

that we needed to do something to get the ratings

back up for "A Current Affair."

And the only way to do that was to infuse a lot of money.

So we paid $500,000 for an interview in which

Joey would finally admit on camera to his wife

that he had had an affair with Amy Fisher

and Mary Jo would say, I know, I forgive you.

-But there's only one problem with their plan.

Despite agreeing to plead guilty to the rape charges,

Joey's still telling Mary Jo

that he never had sex with Amy Fisher.

He claims he only plea bargain to spare the family a trial.

-He won't come to terms with the fact

that he did have an affair.

-Says who?

-And at this point, Mary Jo still believes him.

-Shortly before the interview began, Joey Buttafuoco

admitted that he had never actually let his wife know

that he did have an affair with Amy Fisher.

He still had been denying it to her.

The Fox attorneys got on with with Mary Jo

and Joey's attorneys and said, look, this is $500,000.

You've got to say this.

So we reconvened

at Steven Dunleavy's house

and redid the interview.

-As I recall, he's going to say I have the affair

and I'm going to say and I forgive you.

That was the stipulation.

Again, I didn't believe it.

I still didn't believe it, but I... I had to say it.

-A lot of women with bullets in their head

wouldn't forgive Joey Buttafuoco.

But what's your reaction?

-I love him. I forgive him. He's my husband.

-With those nine words, the Buttafuocos

collect the $500,000.

At the time, it's the highest payout by a tabloid show

and a new low for checkbook journalism.

-It wasn't easy, but I did it. I did it.

I sold out. I sold out hoping they'd all go away.

They didn't. [ Chuckles ]

-For the crime of rape in the third degree,

you're to serve six months in a county jail

as conditions are going to concur

with a five-year probationary term.

-Within minutes of being sentenced,

Joey Buttafuoco was a prisoner at the Nassau County Jail.

-Even after both Amy Fisher and Joey get sent to prison,

the Buttafuocos remain in the spotlight,

not just on tabloid shows, but also as punchlines

on late night comedy shows.

-Mary Jo, I see you have a hell of a bald spot there.

It must have been some accident. - Oh, yeah.

I'll tell you, a crazy teenage bitch tried to kill me.

-When I would see myself portrayed on "SNL"

or "In Living Color,"

it bothered me because I was a victim of a violent crime.

It wasn't funny. They made fun of my face.

Well, my face looks like that because I got shot.

It bothered the hell out of me for a long time

because it's what they did.

It was... we were ripe for anything, any parody, any joke.

-Hey, Joey, what are you kissing that whore for?

-Hey, Mary Jo.

I wasn't kissing her.

I was, uh, giving her CPR over here.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-The media's appetite for the Buttafuoco-Fisher debacle

is insatiable, until...

Yeah, well...

-...O.J. Simpson and the crime of the century.

-This just culminates a series of unbelievable events

that took place today.

-When the O.J. Simpson story happened,

I remember saying to Joey we're free.

We're free. They're done with us from.

-From the L.A. County Courthouse,

the site of the trial of the century.

Good evening. I'm Barry Nolan.

-The O.J. Simpson trial was probably

the craziest media event I've ever seen in my lifetime,

and I don't think I'll ever see anything like it again.

-O.J. Simpson is wanted, but he's been charged

in the two murders that took place Sunday night.

-Heading into 1994,

tabloid television was out of control.

Everything was leading up to what happened

when Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were slaughtered.

-In the summer of 1994,

the manhunt for the former running back

and Hertz rental car pitchman O.J. Simpson

mesmerizes the nation.

-Prosecutors said O.J. had the motive.

They painted him as a jealous wife abuser.

-Once the trial gets underway, 150 million viewers

watched the trial like a daily soap opera,

turning the judge, attorneys and witnesses into mini celebrities.

-The nation was absolutely gripped by that story.

They could not get enough of it.

-Experts put the former football star's voice to the test.

-It's called a psychological stress evaluator,

and it analyzes a person's...

-It's a classic tabloid story.

It has everything in it. It has murder.

It has sex. It has celebrity.

-It also has the power to obliterate the line

between network and tabloid news.

With the tabloid shows regularly

outreporting the mainstream press.

-Secret bank account.

"Hard Copy" gets to the bottom line

about how much money O.J. really has.

-The networks saw that we were out scooping them

on everything O.J., and that viewers

were watching "Current Affair," "Hard Copy"

and "Inside Edition"

instead of their nightly news programs.

-After a decade looking down

their noses at the tabloid news...

-Another amazing day in Los Angeles.

...mainstream networks start looking a lot

like the thing they once despised and criticized.

-NBC News and other media reported that Caitlyn

told law enforcement that Simpson was not at home

when a limo arrived and take him to the airport.

-I really think the momentum shifted during

the O.J. Simpson trial.

I see it as the time where the networks said,

we can't beat them, we got to join them.

And that's what they did. - Good evening.

Tonya Harding is still insisting

she was never in on the plan to attack Nancy Kerrigan.

-But for the first time today, Harding admitted she did not

go to the authorities immediately.

-For Mary Jo Buttafuoco,

the media's fascination with O.J. gives her enough

time away from the spotlight to get her life together.

In 2003, she finally divorces Joey.

-Joey never, ever, ever, ever to this day said,

"Mary Jo, I did something really horrible and really wrong,

and I'm so sorry.

Because he continued on with his crazy life.

-Both Joey and Amy continue to bask in the limelight

a little bit longer.

For Joey, its stints on "Judge Judy"

and "Celebrity Boxing."

For Amy Fisher, it's a string of more sex tapes.

But by the end of the decade, the tabloid TV shows

that made them famous are essentially dead.

-The tabloid shows kind of lost their relevance.

The networks took over.

They started covering stories like O.J. Simpson.

They started covering the stories

they wouldn't have touched.

"A Current Affair" was canceled.

"Hard Copy" was canceled by the end of the decade.

-Even the host of the last show standing, "Inside Edition,"

seems to be feeling the strain.

-That's tomorrow, and that is it for us today.

And we will leave you with a... I can't do it.

We'll do it live. - Okay,

We'll do it live! It!

Do it live!

-In 2019, Steve Dunleavy, the man who best

epitomizes tabloid journalism in the '90s,

dies at the age of 81.

But the legacy of what he helped create lives on.

♪♪

-I think you can find any sort of form of tabloid

you want on the Internet,

whether it be "TMZ" for your gossip,

TikTok for some piece of video that everybody wants to see.

-Police are still searching for 22-year-old Gabby Petito.

She disappeared while on a cross-country road trip.

-You can get whatever you want, and that's where tabloid is.

-We thought with "A Current Affair"

that we were democratizing newstelling.

Only certain people were allowed to tell the news

in the early '90s.

But once the Internet came along,

look at where we are now.

The world tabloid really doesn't even matter anymore.

-Let me interrupt you, Congresswoman.

Let me interrupt you just for a moment.

We've got some breaking news out of Miami.

Stand by, if you will.

Justin Bieber has been arrested on a number of charges.

-Everything is tabloid today.

♪♪