The publication generally credited as America's first national weekly gossip tabloid is Broadway Brevities and Society Gossip,[lower-alpha 1] which was launched in New York in 1916 and edited by a Canadian named Stephen G. Clow. Brevities started out covering high society and the A-list of the New York theater world, but by the 1920s focused on society scandal and the destruction of reputations culminating in its editor, Stephen Clow, and two of his associates being charged with using the mails to defraud due to allegations that the magazine was a blackmail racket threatening to publish material injurious to the reputations of businesses and individuals unless they purchased advertising. The tabloid was consequently shut down in 1925 after Clow and his associates were convicted with Clow sentenced to six years in prison (serving two).