How David Pecker Ruined the National Enquirer

It’s ironically fitting Donald Trump’s association with the National Enquirer has fast become one of the main reasons for his presidential downfall. For decades Trump traded secrets with the Enquirer involving other TV stars in return for it not printing dirt on him. It was a deal worked out with David Pecker who groveled for Dirty Donald’s friendship as a way of saving AMI, the debt-ridden publishers of his scabrous scandal magazine.

In return for dirty money from Trump contacts (likely laundered Russian and Saudi dollars), Pecker’s paper also became a conduit for campaign cash Trump spent illegally hushing up affairs with dozens of women. They included porn star Stormy Daniels, and Playboy model Karen McDougal. The Enquirer used the candidate’s election money buying up their stories but never publishing them, protecting married Trump from vote-killing scandal.

And as part of this Faustian deal, Pecker backed Trump’s 2016 election bid with a succession of vicious and untrue Enquirer stories lashing Hillary Clinton and lauding Trump. FBI agents, raiding the offices of Trump lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, discovered Trump’s dastardly deal with morally and financially strapped Pecker. Since then, Cohen, Pecker, and Enquirer editor Dylan Howard, and Trump chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, have turned against poisonous Potus. They’re cooperating with Mueller’s investigation to avoid prison, or receive reduced sentences.

It turns my stomach, daily seeing Pecker’s face grinning moronically from the TV screen as reporters expose his journalistic corruption. Having worked for the Enquirer in its 1970s heydays when its circulation was the second highest in America, sometimes in the 5-million weekly range, it disgusts me professionally what Pecker’s done with the iconic tab.

Apart from his deals with Trump, he’s made similar shameful compromises with other celebrities, buying up dirt on them, then holding it as a pistol to their heads for cooperation they wouldn’t normally give.

While I worked for the Enquirer in the days of the paper’s founder, Generoso Pope, today’s tabloid is a pale and failing imitation of the original. Pope’s reporters and editors where the highest paid in America and included many brilliant journalists drawn from publications around the world. He sent them on globe circling assignments for compelling and unusual stories which drew huge readership.

With Pope, money was no object if the story was good enough. In the U.S. he changed the face of American journalism by letting the ‘gossip’ genie out of the bottle, spawning many imitators including People magazine. With Pecker, everything’s done cheaply, and his score on the journalistic originality scale is close to zero.

The old Enquirer broke true stories that drew a vast audience and circulation. Its staff revered Pope for his genius. By contrast Pecker’s employees detest him. He shouts and raves in the office. He’s a smarmy sycophant, publicly kissing celebrity butt. And since taking over the Enquirer, he’s run its finances into the ground.

Looking back I don’t recall Pope’s tabloid stooping to the ugly tactics of Pecker’s publication — which is thrown together by a meager staff of interns and poorly-paid hacks. And the way I hear it, Donald Trump’s not the only big name involved in Pecker’s tabloid protection racket. The Enquirer’s reported to have a safe packed with celebrity and political stories that went unpublished because of special deals with pernicious Pecker.

Names like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tiger Woods, Bill Cosby and many others, including British royalty and UK stars, are among them. Pecker’s web of complicity also included protecting sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein, the moviemaker accused of assaulting his own actors. Weinstein had a warm association with Pecker and Enquirer editor Dylan Howard. He relied on the Enquirer to help him gather information about his accusers and to help him intimidate them.

It’s said he provided tips to Enquirer staff about other celebrities in return for the tabloid killing stories about his own sexual misconduct. This kind of behavior would have been grounds for instant dismissal at the Enquirer run by Gene Pope, a brilliant tabloid originator who turned scandal into an art form.

David Pecker’s done the reverse, bringing himself and the entire business into even more disrepute than it suffered before.