Never had I ever felt so much wonder and horror at the “thwack” of a newspaper landing near my door. It was March 8, 2019, and the newspaper was the Wall Street Journal. I didn’t subscribe to the print copy, but a carrier sometimes threw an extra one on my building’s stoop by mistake. Fortunately, it was one of those days.
It wasn’t as though I hadn’t seen the story – it was published online and I had read it. But the words on a physical page seemed more startling and damning. I picked up the newspaper and carried it inside, examining it closely. The article in question, by Rob Copeland and Bradley Hope, was below the fold, in the spot usually reserved for quirky features that were not “hard news” but intended to stir conversation. For that purpose, it worked spectacularly.
The headline: “Shkreli, From Cell, Plots Comeback”.
And the subheading: “Using contraband cellphone, disgraced ‘Pharma Bro’ steers old company”.
The material in the subheading, with all of its illicit implications, attracted the eyeballs on the internet. By the time I had to leave for work around 8:30am, the piece was already “trending” on Twitter and stayed there most of the day. Predictably, many comments were along the lines of “here we go again; that ‘creep’ Martin Shkreli is doing something illegal.”
