Spy
was a magazine of satirical
journalism, featuring in-depth investigative
journalism. Based in New
York, Spy
resembled the British magazine Private Eye, which intelligently researched the
American media and entertainment industries, and delivered content in a
humorously irreverent style.
Some of Spy’s features attempted to present the
darker side of celebrities such as the
prophetic photograph of Kurt Cobain holding a muzzle
of a rifle in his mouth, Arnold Schwarzenegger (printing a nude photo
of him and a picture of his father''s Nazi party
membership card), John F. Kennedy, Jr., Martha
Stewart, and especially the real-estate tycoon Donald
Trump and his then-wife Ivana Trump. The mogul was
repeatedly described as
"short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump,"
and such literary, pejorative
epithets became a Spy trademark.
Spy ''s distinctive features included “Writer''s
Blecch,” "Separated At Birth?," which were side-by-side photographs
of two different celebrities, and "Celebrity
Math," which presented
thumbnail headshots atop simple and imaginative
mathematical models
representing the components of celebrities, for
example, David Letterman + Dennis Miller = Dennis Prager.
For a humorous magazine, Spy was often aggressive
about straight feature
reporting. In its 1993 article entitled
"Clinton''s
First 100 Lies,", Spy was the first to detail
what it described as
the new president''s duplicitous behavior. After O.J.
Simpson was acquitted on charges of murdering his
former wife and her
friend, Spy ran a cover story under the headline
"He''s Guilty, By
George!" compiling a long list of details that
its writers said proved
conclusively that Simpson was the killer; he did not
sue.
Spy used a staff of attorneys to research
such potentially libelous
material, producing strong stories that often enraged
their prominent subjects.
Despite its short life, Spy was among the most
influential of American magazines,
chiefly due to its consistently preserved policy of
detached and ironic tone, to
its use of imaginatively humorous scientific charts
and tables to convey
information, and its esthetically pleasing typography
and layout. The magazine
was also controversial: many reputable journalists
considered it aggressive and
flashy, whereas many younger ones felt it expressed
exactly their thought.
After one shut-down and a subsequent rebirth, it
closed for good in 1998.