Shocker! Could even a tawdry supermarket tabloid be worthy of a gushy, nostalgic tribute? “Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer,” a documentary from Mark Landsman, presents The Enquirer as an unlikely haven of bona fide shoe-leather journalism, or at the very least a fun place to work, until — in this telling — David J. Pecker became the owner and sullied a halcyon tradition of dirt digging.

For much of the movie, former staff members share recollections of the scoops of yore, a period that encompassed paying an Elvis Presley relative to snap a photo of the deceased singer in his coffin and killing stories on Bob Hope and Bill Cosby in exchange for access. Occasionally, an interviewee acknowledges a pang of conscience. Tony Brenna, discussing Cathy Evelyn Smith, the “Florence Nightingale with a hypodermic syringe” ultimately imprisoned for her role in John Belushi’s death, feels the paper crossed a line in befriending her to coax a quote.