Is Britney A Space Alien? You Won't Find The Answer OnlineIs Britney A Space Alien? You Won't Find The Answer Online

Bat Boy needs your help!

The Weekly World News is confronting an E-business albatross weighing on many companies: how to keep online channels from cannibalizing traditional business.

The American Media Inc. publication relies heavily on circulation revenue. But instead of ponying up $2.79 at the newsstand, inquiring minds have been able to log on to www.weeklyworldnews.com at no charge to find out who impregnated the Loch Ness monster. Not so this week--if you want to discover why Britney Spears is a space alien, you'll have to buy a paper copy. The Weekly World News has temporarily shut down its site, with this ultimatum on the home page: "We would like you to buy the paper at least one stinking week out of the year. ... We want to see who our true fans are. We want to know who loves us. We want to keep our jobs."

That should be a wake-up call for readers who religiously track the whereabouts of Bat Boy (a Weekly World News fixture that recently spawned an off-Broadway musical), but the publication isn't taking any chances. To really badger folks into submission, the home page includes an impassioned plea from "Ed Anger," the publication's no-holds-barred ranting columnist. He closes with this salient point: "We kill three hundred thousand trees a year just so our loyal readers can take this fun publication to their bathrooms. You have a computer in your bathroom? Ha! I didn't think so."