Transcripts For CNNW Scandalous The Untold Story Of The National Enquirer 20200518

I think you need to look at the enquirer in terms of the realm of popular culture. Rather than in the realm of journalism. I think this is a bad time not just for the press but its a bad time for the truth. I dont want to set the world on fire, i just want to start a flame in your heart in my heart i but one desire, and that one is you, no other will do i just want to be the one you love and with your admission that you feel the same, ill reach the goal im dreaming of, believe me in my heart i have one desire that is you, no other will do lantana, florida, population 7,126, according to the last census. An undistinguished south florida town on u. S. 1, about ten miles south of palm beach, florida. An unlikely place youd think to be the home of one of americas most successful publishing enterprises. And yet lantana florida is the home of the National Enquirer. General pope jr. , a transplanted new yorker, godfather of this magazine, journal, newspaper. Gene pulp was a force of nature. He knew what he wanted to do, and it was that paper, and he wanted to sell the most papers of anybody in the world. Very cleverly identified a way to communicate with mass market america. How he communicated it was studied by others, adopted by others, which set the stage for what was to come. And you know as well as i do that there are allegations that mafia money has been behind the enquirer since the very beginning. Right, i have heard that. General gene pulp was the son of gene pupal. He was born into privilege live. His father owned a paper in new york. Because of, that he was huge political figure in america. Gene was a child prodigy in many ways. At 16, he was helping to run the ill progreso. His father became one of the most powerful guys in new york. He pretty much controlled the italian vote. Along the way, he became a made guy in the mafia. When his father died, gene was the heir apparent to taking over the newspaper his father on the other hand. Il progreso was not the kind of paper he wanted to do. He wanted to form a newspaper in his own image just like his father had done it. He wanted to buy the new york enquirer, but he needed 75,000 to buy it. Believe it or not, gene popes real godfather was the godfather, jean costello, who is a buying b. I. G. Guy in the mob. Thats where he got the money. And it was an interestfree loan. Why . It was like family. Its a very italian thing. And that was the start of the enquirer. He immediately put the Word National on it. He envisioned publishing mounds and mounds and mounds of National Enquirers. He was looking for something to sell more copies. I want you to be mine. One day he was driving on one of the new york highways, and there was an accident ahead. Everybody slowed down. They were all rubbernecking, looking at the side of the road. And he looked at the side, and he saw all these people staring at a really gory scene. I really think youre swell he went my god, nobody is doing pictures of that. He suddenly realized, this is what i have to do. I bought to make a gore rag. And what he did is that he went to the police department. He basically got first dibs on the photography of these horrible accidents and thats how it started. I got to tell you, when i first saw, sometimes it was hard to pick up. But circulation went up dramatically. It took off, but it was a little uncomfortable. He realized that gore was only going to take him so far. The circulation peaked at one million, but he dreamed actually of 20 million, which of course was insane. By the mid60s, many, many people were moving to the suburbs. So he went newsstands, and the idea is weve got get it in front of more people. Well, where is the people . There is madness in the marketplace. Just listen to this. We zeroed in on supermarkets because the one area where some member of every family in the United States comes once a week at least. He wanted to be in racks at the front end of every checkout counter in the United States. People told him great idea, but you cant do this. A gore people, how could that get into supermarkets . People would throw up at a time theyre about to buy milk, you know . It was totally impossible. So we drastically in one fell swoop eliminated all the gore. From the moment he started, he never stopped playing with it, trying to change the format, to find the winning formula. In came headlines like these. Celebrity news. Gossip items. Dogs. Pets. Diets. Medical oddity stories. Psychic stories. I happen to discover that jimmy carter had once seen a ufo. We did one on making cars out of lob centers. We had some guy called up wanted to know where he could buy one. Our headlines, our pictures are front page. All of them had to be a triggering mechanism to get peoples attention. And if they like what they saw, they bought it. He really understood the psychology of the average american people. He used to call the reader of the National Enquirer missy smith in kansas city. She was astounded by every story which the National Enquirer was judged. The basic american woman. She is somebody who had family swlooshlgs loved story, loved celebrities, and wanted to know essentially that celebrities suffered too. Mrs. Smith goes to the beauty parlor, talks to her girlfriends. Theyre all chatting about celebrities. Dolly parton is depressed or Elizabeth Taylor got fat again and cant find love. She would go oh, and have to read all about it. He were missy smith in kansas city. I guess im a little nosy. We were missy smith in jahnke kerrs. They cant print something thats not true. We were missy smith everywhere. I just enjoy the headlines. She was our boss. She could make or break us. Missy smith has had a long week at work. She gets her National Enquirer. She goes home. She has the bath. She has a glass of wine and she sits down and enjoys herself. I feel a Great Sadness that i will not be here in this Office Working on your behalf to achieve those hopes in the next two and a half years. The enquirer was a nice window to look for at a Pleasant Place to go after the harsher news in the real world. Guns, ammunition, explosives, and at least one pipe bomb. I dont think pope wanted the outside world to spill over into the enquirer. Our philosophy, i guess you would call it is basically in all the other media, the people are getting all the bad news today. Theyre getting swamped with it, inundated with it. And i think theyve just about had it. I think theyre searching for something thats going to tell them there is a good side to life. Everything isnt bad. Pope was the conservative man. Was he a republican or democrat . I never knew. I could never tell. He was a democrat. I never knew him to be anything but that. But he wasnt somebody who was interested in getting elected or having a hand in washington. That wasnt his bag. Because he came from a rich italian family, which was mafiarelated, the only connection to politics they had was they owned the politicians. We were into country and flag. Most of our readers were proud to be american. We did not attack the u. S. Government because our readers believed in the u. S. Government. We werent the conscience of the world. We were interested in stories that would sell papers. National enquirer was a place where, you know, facts were not important. What was important was eyeballs. The universe that is described in edition after edition of the National Enquirer is a nonexistent universe in terms of reality. Its always been fakish. In other words, there was a nub of truth to most of the stories it printed. We would sensationalize that germ of truth to make it very palatable and very desirable to the reader. And we used to call that exploding the nub. Things were exploded. You just take a story and you make it more interesting. You dont change the facts. You just sensationalize it. Thats what tabloids do. Generoso pope decided he wanted to move the enquirer out of new york. And in 1971, we moved to florida. He wanted to be on the ocean. And once he was here, he never left. He had the wherewithal to go anywhere in the world he wanted. He preferred to sit in lantana and let the world come to him. Walking into the Enquirer Office at this time was through a beautiful tropical garden. And you walk into this gigantic newsroom, which is buzzing. And bent over their desks and calling all over the world. Is this melbourne, australia . Well we have some questions on that ufo story. Everybody is collecting, everybody is furiously on the phone. It was like a journalistic beehive. Controlled chaos. It really was. Rotary phones and ashtrays. Cigarettes and cigars everywhere. God knows why we didnt all have lung cancer. But it was a place that got your adrenaline going. It was such a great vibe. It was so exciting. It was so crazy, and you just thought maybe i want to be a part of this. The city room has a decidedly fleet street accent. To reach hillary g. Why do you liken hoover to a european dictator. London journalists schooled in scandal and the various excesses of the british penny press. Those papers had the most saucy story, and they didnt spare any details at all. They went for the jugular. And he said ive got to have me those guys. Thats who i want on my paper. British reporters were a lot more aggressive, a lot more capable of doing unorthodox things. Number one under gene pope is ian calendar. By age 25, i worked for three people, including the biggest paper in scotland. Thats where i learned the craft. Iaia calendar was used to chasing fire engines and doing a lot of scurrilous stuff. People were slashing rival reporters tires, cutting people out on the doorstep. Calendar came from that background. Every story you were under pressure to get Something Better than the guy next to you. It was cutthroat competition. You had to have cunning, charm when it was needed. You had to talk people into being in a paper they didnt want to be in. We didnt take no for an answer. Were guys who were raised on textbook journalism, underhand tactics, but we were not scumbags. We were pretty good journalists. And we, of course, are checking to see whether you have any information on the situation. All the information i have at this time is the following. Okay. We would run circles around most american reporters. They just didnt visit. Some of them did. Some of them developed it. But only under our tutelage. I was looking for a uktype reporters, and the only reason i needed them is i couldnt find great reporters in america. We were an uphill battle to try to get them to come and work for the enquirer. The reputation of the enquirer was terrible. I honestly thought it would be easier to tell people i was in prison or a Mental Hospital for a couple of years. When i first joined the paper, it was kind of a joke, really. We thought they were kind of tacky. I went to harvard to become a writer. And as my mother said, no way. You cant go from harvard to the National Enquirer. The prospect of writing for National Audience was pretty thrilling. I mean even though it was the National Enquirer. But the reality was different. These people are promising to triple my salary and send me around the world. I need to be a little bit reckless. Generoso owned the National Enquirer lock, stock and barrel. He had a fortune. So he didnt care what expenses racked up chasing down sfoyrks you could get his curiosity going, then youre going to be doing it, using his money. You didnt have to ask to hire a plane or a boat or a house or anything else. You just did it. The owner would hand them bags of money and they were on the private jet to paris. Maui. Monaco. Puerto vallarta. Were staying in a luxury hotel, got the penthouse. What about a temple of snakes in india . Can you get out today to hong kong . The world was our oyster. That was the marvelous thing about the enquirer. The range of stuff was terrific. It was more than any paper or magazine i worked for ever offered. Within the first two years, i was making as much as ben bradley was at the Washington Post. And man, that guys underpaid. One thing about the atmosphere in the newsroom of the National Enquirer is you would have prifrivolity and genl sense of things going on, but when pope walked through the newsroom, everyone picked up the phone. There was a tension when he entered the room. It was best if you didnt engage with him until he knew you. A couple of times he barked at me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. You suddenly realized that youre dealing with somebody whos 100 ruthless. He was a terrifying figure. You didnt talk to mr. Pope and he didnt talk to you. After id been there about six month, i was walking down the corridor and he was walking towards me. He looked down at me and said hi, david. I thought oh, geez, he knows my name. This very bad. We were instructed not to look him in the eye. He never once looked me in the eye the entire time we worked for him. And he would look at his desk or look at the floor. Gene pope was ambitious and driven. And when he wanted something, he was like an express train going 100 miles an hour. And if people they hired werent taking him there, they were gone. There was no job security at the National Enquirer. He would pit every editor against each other, and we would vie for the number one spot. It was brutal. It was brutal. If you were somebody that got results, then you got page 1 and some big stories, you might be good for a week. Everybody lived in terror of friday because on friday it was usually a bloodbath. At the end of the week, wed lock up the paper and people would all gravitate out to go have a drink. Pope got tired of everybody leaving. So he decided to bring in this huge indicate erred event every friday night. Shrimp. And a full ice cream sundae bar. And all the booze you could possibly drink. Beer, wine, everything. Of course, all of us were all definitely drunk. Sit in the middle of the newsroom, smoking his cigarettes. But somebody would be fired before that dinner was over. It was a friday night massacre. And this was ruthless. Security would just come to a reporters desk, escort them out of the building and hand them a paycheck on the way out. You never knew who was going survive friday. Goodbye florida living. Goodbye big paychecks, goodbye amazing expense accounts. It all went out the window in a flash. It was all about the story. Get the story and dont come back until you have it. The National Enquirer at its zenith was a spy network. You couldnt go inside hospital without somebody calling t the enquirer because they were all getting paid. We might have stories from your sister, yourself brother, your boyfriend. It was important to know the hairstylists. Some of them were bitter, angry, jealous. Envy was a very key factor. In hollywood, it was amazing how many people were prepared to sell out the stars they worked for. Someone in your pr office, someone in your lawyers office, someone in your agents office. And the agents double dipped all the time. That was standard operating procedure. The average snitch was just a silly little tip would be getting 300. If the tip made the cover, it was more like 5,000, 6,000, 10,000. Were talking big bucks. I mean, youre not supposed to pay for news. When i was at the new york post, you would pay for photos, but thats very different. A lot of outlets do that. You do not pay for information. The Mainstream Media went after us saying we paid sources. We said yes, we do. Listen, if theyve got the information, they should be paid for it. When i started at the National Enquirer as a reporter, i didnt know very much about the world. And one of the great heartaches of my experience there was to see that if you were famous, if you were rich, if you were a celebrity that people in your orbit would undoubtedly one day betray you for money. And the thing that shocked me was that it was always the people close to you who would betray you the most. Jan, are you there . Im taping this. Jan king, right. All right. Bob hope, no thanks for the memories. Talking to jan king who is associated with americas best loved comedian, goes back 37 years. Had a double life, cleverly hiding his women behind the facade of happy family man and philanthropist. Hope ran a office that also served as a love nest for his unknown lovers and world famous starlets. Hundreds of women. Some who had code names and put them on the payroll so he could use them as tax deductions. That was all true and okay and very good. I had a story about bob hope, and it was about all of his philandering and some of his mistresses and some of this. So i wrote it up. I submitted it. Mr. Pope got it. And he said to me, barbara, i dont think america wants to know this about bob hope. And he killed the story. Mr. Pope killed the story. There had to be some advantage that they would get out of killing a story. There is a scandal there is a negative story. Oh, in exchange, well do bob hope at home. Well make a deal with you to do nice stories and youll cooperate with us, and well take beautiful pictures, and all that other stuff will go away. And then youd have an ongoing relationship with them. Its like getting them on the hook and then they have to keep giving you these positive stories. Its protection money. And thats how the mafia works. We were the only people that celebrities had to fear if they did something wrong. They had to worry about theenquirer because we knew i wouldnt say everything, but we knew a heck of a lot. Ive asked one question. Do you use drugs . And i cant get an answer to that. Of course i dont do drugs, you idiot . Okay. And the second thing is i said when you read the story im not reading the story. And im telling you, if you sent it, you have a lawsuit, okay . You have a lawsuit. All right. And there was several people admit we dont have the information yet. Some of the things we did to get a story blurred the lines of legality, i would say. I mean, ive done dirty tricks, oh my lord. Phones wore banned by private detectives employed by the enquirer. Peoples mail was sometimes being read, taken out of letter b boxes, opened and resealed and what have you. Were there things that were done that were questionable . Or illegal . Maybe. How about no . No. Huhuh, no way. Come on, no. No. Annual fee on any card. [anthony] hey mama, whats up . [mama] im confused. Confused about what, everything ok . Yeah, i only see one price on my phone bill. That doesnt sound confusing mama. Youre on tmobile, taxes and fees are included. Oh come on, theres always extra fees not on tmobile mama. Why cant all my bills be like this . I dont know mama. Bye mama, love you. Anthony . Umph at tmobile, taxes and fees are included. And right now, when you switch your family, get 4 lines of unlimited for just 35 a line. It wont wait for a convenient time. Or for hospitals to get back to normal again. Thats why, at Cancer Treatment centers of america, we arent waiting. Were right here, still focused on the only thing we do, providing worldclass cancer care, all under one roof. Because cancer isnt just what we do, its all we do. Cancer Treatment Centers of america. Call now for an appointment. The returdraftinging the return of the slide job ripping the wall gasngo bumpnrun the return of loud nascar is back, and xfinity is bringing you the best seat in the house. Elvis was everything to an enquirer reader. Elvis could make or break a whole tabloid. He could make or break a whole tabloid reporters career. Elvis presley, the longtime king of rock n roll is dead. An autopsy report released tonight tomorrow Elvis Presley will be buried after a private funeral. I was in the office in 1977 when elvis died. The news broke about 5 00 in the afternoon, and by 5 45, there were six of us on a learjet heading for memphis. There was one extra bag on the plane, and that bag contained 50,000 in cash. By 5 00 p. M. , the crowd numbered more than 70,000. For many, it was all just too much. Friends tried to comfort fans who waited 20 hours to pay their last respects. All i feel is just hurt. I hurt all over. When we got to memphis, we took over the entire floor of a hod inn. Booked up every room in the hotel. We had fax machines going and photo machines. With turned the hotel into a newspaper office. And that cash rapidly started to be distributed to various sources in memphis. We bought up almost everybody. The huge crowds have become steadily bigger throughout the day. The families say they want the funeral to be quiet, to be dignified, and to be a family affair. Pope had a very strange mentality. He wanted to know all the ins and outs of peoples deaths. Before the funeral, Elvis Presleys body, dressed in a white dinner jacket, lay in a copper coffin for people to see, though not photograph. Cameras were not permitted. The perfect enquirer photo, nobody else had it, it had to be a oneofakind. It had to tell a story unto itself, and it had to be something that everybody wanted to see. The right photo could bring the phenomenal amount of money depending on how right it was. So whats the ultimate picture that youre going get of elvis . Elvis in the coffin. That was an operation that was highly secret. It went on for days and days and days. It was a white cortege, a white hearse, and ten white cadillacs. Elvis loved cadillacs. He had a dozen himself. So all the relatives were in line at his casket to bear him farewell. We dressed up a portly elderly british gentleman has a priest. He was in line. He got to the casket. And underneath his robe, he had a little miniature camera. But he couldnt get high enough to get the picture. So we didnt have that one of our photographers saw elvis cousin go into a local bar. They followed him in. And as the guy is standing there, he says to him how would you like to make a lot of money . Id love to make. He said if i gave you a camera, could you get a picture of elvis in his coffin . Sure. Unfortunately, it didnt work the first couple of times. And he had to make excuses to go back and pay his respects over and over again. The first picture is a picture of the guy taking the picture. He had turned it around the wrong way. The second one, picture of the chandelier. Oh my god. The third one was just brilliant. It was the perfect page 1 picture. We sold 6. 9 million copies that week. People were stealing copies. This was so huge. Lets go ballroom blitz. Mary jane buys the paper. She gives it to mom. Mom gives it to niece. Niece gives it to husband. There were 25 million readers a week. The enquirer had so much mail that they had their own zip code, 36364. We were bigger than Time Magazine. We were bigger than newsweek. We sold more copies than anyone else. Thinking your favorite magazine, the National Enquirer. Here we go again. Ian calder on dirt. At the National Enquirer, we uncover more dirt than anyone, except possibly this hoover cleaner. It may even get more dirt than we do. When we had a major front page and it sold really well, i maybe had ten minutes of euphoria. Then i would remember i had to find a great front page that was going to sell 4. 5, 5 million copies. So every single week it went on and on and on like that. When his body was found last week, police said john belushi at the age of only 33 had died of Natural Causes and that there was no foul play. When somebody dies, its like okay, lets badmouth them as much as possible. Lets put it in the enquirer. John belushi dying was a big story, but we always wanted to do the story behind the story. I picked two really great reporters. I think haley was a very competent journalist even for enquirer standards. I was in lantana in march when he died at the chateau marmont. We wanted to know what happened that night. There was thissist inry woman whose name wasnt released. We called her kathy silver bags because she sold drugs out of her purse. S she listed her occupation as backup singer. Police questioned but released her. Smith, a 35yearold rock n roll groupie went home to toronto. We then went up to canada to find kathy smith. We spent about ten days in a hotel room. A and the story came out. And i say, you know, this woman is saying that she killed john belushi. She is not saying it. I said i want that headline. Go back and get her to say i killed john belushi on tape. So we spent the next week partying with her. We ran up an enormous hotel bill hand had a great time and became her best friends. And she didnt want to say it. Tony had a tape recorder going. I had one going. She would say yeah, i am Response Form his death, but we cant say that. I said come on, katherine, lets get this over with. You killed the guy. Under any circumstance, you shot him up with heroin and cocaine and he died. And she said well, if you want me to say that i killed him turn off the tape. And click. Brennan turns his tape off. I leave my running. So i ended up taping her. Confessing to the murder. We got her to say it. We ran this front page story. I killed john belushi. Its the murder confession. Its all the details. She was John Belushis Florence Nightingale with a needle. Well, its not something cathy smith is going to say. Its not something most people are going to say. But you say you were sort of like Florence Nightingale with any of us is what you were saying. Yeah, thats right. She is being fed a quote. Thats how it works. We knew that what she was saying was going to be selfincriminating and that she would probably be arrested for it, and she was. So the Prosecutors Office went nuts. In an enquirer article, smith appears to confess of injecting belushi with a fatal dose of heroin and cocaine. And for the next six months i was in front of a grand jury. I mean, this was the first time that National Enquirer reporters had to show up by subpoena to a grand jury Murder Investigation on a major celebrity. It was stressful. Actually, my marriage fell apart. Tonys fell apart first. I followed pretty much right behind him. I felt that we had crossed the line on that story. We had gone too far in becoming her friend, and i felt we had sold her out. And i felt that particularly so when she actually went to prison. John belushis story would be one of the occasions that got to be ethically challenging. Becoming a famous celebrity is a tradeoff. You want the public to admire you. Thats not free. Thats not free. You have to give in return some access to your life. What you give up is anonymity. I had a contact in las vegas who tipped me off that cosby was keeping a girl. She was a show girl. Hed bought a house for her and he would go up to vegas and visit her. So i ordered a stakeout, a photograph we had in vegas, and he caught cosby going into the house, coming out of the house with the girl, kissing her at the door, all of this. And i had a couple other contacts of mine who were able to confirm this story. I wrote it up, gave it in to my editor, mr. Pope saw the story and he said shes got to go and call cosby. This was the time that he was americas dad. He had the cosby show on television. Id been on set many times. Id interviewed all the people on there. I thought oh my god, if i have to call cosby up now. They said you got to call him, so i called him. And he of course said whats the name of your executive editor . And i told him. And he said what number can i reach him . I gave him the number. He said thank you very much and he hung up. He proceeded to call iaian calder who cut a deal with cosby to kill my story in exchange for a couple of sitdown interviews with any reporter except barbara sternig. And this was kind of the end of my relationship with the cosby show. For a long time we killed stories about bill cosby. I got some stories. Little starlets who were on his show. That would call in, he did this, he did that. I would go to my editor and i would put a lead in about the story and it gets approved or not approved. I never heard about it again. It was never seen again. You ask about it and well say well get back to it. But you learned at least for me early on, i was brandnew. Im still trying to prove myself, you didnt push it. I was making trades that would make our readers happier, but i had to make that decision myself, whats the better stories. We were keen on any here is the would sell papers. There is a certain nasty little characteristic that people have. They get a little jealous of success. They want to see somebody taken down a peg or two. Its like in ancient rome, okay . They cheer them when they are famous and they cheer them when theyre doing well. But when things go wrong, they give them the thumbsdown and say good riddance, the hell with them. For People Living with hiv, keep being you. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. Thats when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. 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Our best pricing ever. 30 per line for all nurses, teachers, first responders, military, and their families. Not for a few months, but for as long as they need. Plus, up to 700 off the oneplus 8. Because the people we rely on deserve a network they can rely on. I intend to seek the presidency of the United States in 1988. The enquirer for a long time didnt touch politics because Generoso Pope didnt think politicians sold, but politics became another form of celebrity, and thats where the enquirer got into it. You cant underestimate the significance of gary hart to the National Enquirer. We werent interested in doing stories of potential president ial candidates and politicians per se unless there was some really other story. Gary hart. He was young. He was goodlooking. He was from out west, had friends like Warren Beatty and a lot of other hollywood stars. And the thought was that he was going to win the democratic nomination. He was a meteor. We are going to select not only a leader, were going select a future, and we better know what we are doing. This is serious business, perhaps deadly serious. The miami herald came out with their story, a romance between these two people. Why is the miami herald engaging in enquirer type shit, down . Why dont we try to see if we can a piece of the action in the action the heralds got . All i say is a picture is worth a thousand words. No sexual relationship with donna rice last weekend or any other time. Do you believe that adultery is immoral . Did you ever commit . I do not answer the question. He basically challenged the question. Thats the perfect setup for being an inquienquirer front pa story. A goodlooking sexy lying politician. If youre married and monogamous . Did i do anything immoral . I absolutely did not. He went on television and said its not true. Its absolutely not true. We know its not true. And his wife by his side, who stood by him. When gary says something happened, nothing happened. I mean, everybody knew hed had a thing with this girl, but nobody had the proof. We discovered through one of his neighbors that he had gone down to take a boat ride out of miami, and he had a girl with him. We swept through that wharf for five days trying to find somebody with knowledge of it. We had contact with a freelancer who knew this photograph existed, and we came to an arrangement. 87,000. And we owned worldwide rights to that photo forever. I couldnt have created a better picture. I couldnt have sent a photographer out with instructions and had him come back with Something Better than that. That changed the face of american politics. Gary hart had an excellent chance of becoming president , and that just destroyed his political chances. I dont really want to comment on that. Dukakis took his place. Read my lips. Against george bush, so george bush became president. And his son became president later. We changed the course of history with that. Did we do well or not . Thats not my problem. My problem is we got the story. The gary hart story busted down the privacy wall, just smitherings. Just knocked it down and said were going to know everything about everyone because it sold more papers. I think its important to journalists as to how they go after the story, what they see themselves. Are they news gathers . Are they private is . Are they lawyers . Mr. Pope died in 1988. Then there was a lun bowl period where things were just kind of very tense. And everybody was thrown into a state of complete uncertainty. Whats going to happen . Will the paper keep going . Certainly it was not going to go on the way mr. Pope ran it because mr. Pope owned 100 of the newspaper. And he got what he wanted the way he wanted it. He had built a world in which he was god. And it was a small world, populated by adoring figures and people who would do anything at his command. Basically were giving the public a little hope, a little hope that life isnt all as bad as its portrayed. We like to tell people that their problems are solvable, there are solutions, things arent quite as bad as they might seem. We lost our identity after pope died. We forgot who we were. We had so many changes of ownership and leadership, every one of them wanting to change something. The enquirer had a perfect formula. In my opinion, it should have been left alone. Is it entertainment or is it information . I guess both. I think a good newspaper is a combination of entertainment and information. One of my concern Social Security that it dilutes the news gathering process broadly and that in the long run it affects me because my publisher or jacks publisher says look at this stuff. It really sells. Dont you think you ought to be moving a little more away from this boring soviet stuff . Theres nobody in this room who doesnt deal in truth. Nobody in this room. How do you think america found about jessica han and jimmy swagger . Thats not trash. Thats a great story. The roomba robot vacuum. Only roomba uses 2 multisurface rubber brushes to clean all your floors. And with patented dirt detect technology, roomba finds dirt throughout your home. If its not from irobot, its not a roomba. [anthony] hey mama, whats up . [mama] im confused. Confused about what, everything ok . Yeah, i only see one price on my phone bill. That doesnt sound confusing mama. Youre on tmobile, taxes and fees are included. Oh come on, theres always extra fees not on tmobile mama. Why cant all my bills be like this . I dont know mama. Bye mama, love you. Anthony . Umph at tmobile, taxes and fees are included. And right now, when you switch your family, get 4 lines of unlimited for just 35 a line. Another work from home day in the books. Time for a [whistle] charlie, cocktail . Bobby . Mimi . Rodrigo, marchello . Professor smith, would you care to join me for a cocktail in the lounge . Uncle cliff, look at you. Maurice have you met kendall . Kendall have you met maurice . Elanor, back from paris i see. Miss livingston, care to set the mood . Well, i believe were in good company. Lets drink to that. Lets drink to that. This virus is testing all of us. And its testing the people on the front lines of this fight most of all. So abbott is getting new tests into their hands, delivering the critical results they need. And until this fight is over, we. Will. Never. Quit. Because they never quit. The very first time donald trump made a large presence on the cover of the National Enquirer was the marla maples years. We got a picture of donald on the ski slopes with marla maples and his wife ivana all in the same frame. Theres heartache and betrayal and theyre cheating and hes on ski scopes and hes bringing the misstress. The misstress is in the hotel room over here and the wife is in the hotel room over there. Its a great story, right . Everybody loves it. This marla maples donald trump story was occurred at the same time that Nelson Mandela was being released from his years in the south african, an event of tremendous importance to the world. This was the purest example of the movement from tabloids into the main stream press. And it also tells us something about donald trump and his rise through the sensationalist press. The biggest tipster ever in the business was donald trump. He would call the tabloids in new york to drop gossip items about himself. Ive never seen somebody get so many calls from the press. Where do you work for . Ive worked for a couple of different firms. Hes had pseudonyms where he would call and pretend hes a spokesperson. Whats your name again . John miller. Thats correct. He really wanted to be a star. He would set it up with a madonna call and what happened i dont know if you want to listen to this. I do. Do you . Yeah. We recognize that donald trump had value to the National Enquirer because he could sell newspapers. Hes a very, very good snake oil salesman. And he fit very well with the enquirer. Our readers liked him, so we put a gentleman in charge of him. Larrys job was basically to keep track of donalds love life. I was offered the use of his plane from West Palm Beach to new york on the weekends, comps at all the hotels, you name it. Never took one of them. Only thing i ever took from him was a can of diet coke at a party at maralago. I think that i probably was being looked at like a Public Relations operation for him. You know, just by manipulating our interest in his celebrity. There was a constant 6 00 a. M. Phone calls. I started very quickly that im working for this guy and im not getting paid by this guy. I had to remind him i dont work for him. Trump married marla and the inquiry was invitees me wedding. Im happy and excited, and its the wedding of the century. Everybody in the country believes that maybe their relationship can work if this relationship will work with all the things theyve gone through. I think this will work. I give it four months. I was there that night. I was confronted by marla maples. She was telling me that she had gone after donald and got him, and she was mrs. Trump. I said i cant argue with any of that. Basically she disliked me greatly because of a lot of the stuff we revealed about her. But trump never got upset. Even when they wereer married, as long as it wasnt about him, he was okay. He would throw marla under the bus not to have bad publicity himself. Money, power, a blonde bomb shiel complete with headlines and family feuds. Are you two back together . We are right now, arent we . He was the guy we wanted stories for. At the same time, he was studying how we took things, put them into headlines, and sold them to this commonman audience. He wanted to use us as a microphone to a Different Group of people. The American Public starts to become emotionally attached and wants to see whats happening with this particular celebrity, and he had crossed that line. People now wanted to know about donald trump. Weve always had in this country a kind of seamy underside in the news business, tabloids. Theres nothing new about it. Exactly. And our agenda at newspapers and magazines is increasingly these guys agenda. We all have the same boss, the public. If we continue this Columbia School of journalism, rag rhetoric saying people shouldnt be reporting that, they shouldnt be jamming this down peoples throats, my god, let the public decide. Youre looking down your nose at the public. The public has the right to know what it wants to know. Your point is taken. I dont think its porn to publish a story about Tanya Harding or Michael Jackson. Whats wrong with it . If the lowest common denominator is going to drive the journalistic market, were in big trouble. Let me finish. Something has tipped. People come out and criticize us. They call us low lives of journalism, give us obnoxious anecdotal names. We didnt care and i still dont care. E we were very good at what we did. Steve karls has been with the National Enquirer for 13 years now. A little more than a month ago, he was promoted to executive editor. When steve took over as editor in 1995, it was new blood willing to listen to new ideas. Steve brought the National Enquirer out of the stone age and brought a lot of credibility to the paper. He didnt look like a scruffy guy, he was ivy league, polo shirts, polished. You could have gone to Time Magazine and seen someone like him. He went to harvard but he wasnt that buttoned down. He reminded me of a guy who had been a part time bartender at nantucket. Old timers from the uk, yes, i think we all grinned a bit. We said my god were working for a schoolboy now, you know . The enquirer for the most part was all white people. They had no minorities. They were old white guys who didnt see women or minorities of any importance. We had to go in and fight our way. He encouraged diversity. He encouraged outofthebox thinking. He was a person that knew growth depended oncoming of age. I was brought in to help visualize what black readership would like to see. It opened up the Playing Field of who we could go after. Its not just the same people all the time. And Oprah Winfrey made a big difference. She went across all color lines. Women bought the enquirer more than anybody and women loved oprah. Oprah was on the cover, gosh, at least once or twice a month. Oprah sold a lot of papers. Whitney houston sold a lot of papers, not because of her talent but because of her drug use. She became front page. Somebody like Michael Jackson broke all stereotypes, all color lines, everything. Everybody loved michael. But we started hearing a lot of stories. We have family members that called, close family members that called and told us what was going on with him. So, we were able to bring in stories that nobody else had. I think the enquirer has become an emblem and a symbol for some people of certain type of journalism in this country. I think its important to recognize that the National Enquirer has gotten some stories really right. 911, whats your emergency . Can you get someone over here. What does he look like . Hes o. J. Simpson. I think you know his record. The newspapers used to say youve got exclusives, we were up against you, face to face, we would beat the hell out of you. Okay. O. J. Simpson was the test. On 911 tapes released last night, o. J. Simpson could be heard screaming about a 1993 articles in the National Enquirer. This is bull shit enquirer editors have been following abuse allegations against the former football superer star since 1989. Los Angeles Police have been talking to o. J. Simpson after the death of his exwife and a 26yearold man earlier this morning. When the simpson murdered occurred, we knew this was a moment for the National Enquirer. We already had Huge Networks in place in the celebrity community. This occurred in the middle of one of our networks. So, we immediately put every last resource into it. While the Los Angeles Times has four reporters working on the o. J. Simpson story, the National Enquirer has a team of more than 20. We were at the crime scene before the coroner arrived there. We brought in freelancer. We went to every photographer we knew in l. A. And told them we would pay them any amount of money for any photographs they thought were relevant. We spent over a Million Dollars in source and photographic money. The enquirers ten car lengths were amazing in those days. From florida to l. A. , we were all involved in that story. Homicide detectives expanded the restrictive area around Nicole Simpsons townhouse today. Her father and sister arrived and removed personal belongings. We had a reporter who was in really tight with nicoles family. He was dating both the daughters. We had other people who had contacts with the Goldman Family including ron goldmans mother who lived in st. Louis. We also had a network into some of o. J. Simpsons fellow athletes and o. J. Simpsons friends. We had a very good working relationship with the police. We had moles in the Prosecutors Office and jailhouse sources as well. We knew what he was saying. We knew where he went to the bathroom. We knew everything. With had it totally wired from beginning to end and it sold. Everyone in the country was riveted by this. Now the National Enquirer is competing with the main stream press often beating rivals to the punch on big headline stories. A lot of the details that have later turned up in news week or Television Shows were first reported in the enquirer. Our stories showed more details on that crime than any other publication. We are constantly on it. It was like a soap opera. You just stay on them. Anything you heard today, whats going on now . It was a story that riveted the nation. It was one of the first cable News National melo dramas. So, people were glued to their Television Sets and the National Enquirer was a paper version of the tv. People had to follow them. It was impossible to ignore them. Not only do readers love their o. J. Articles but their commitment to coverage has brought new respect. This is a fascinating interesting story. The conventional press has come into the tabloid territory and theyve come to appreciate us. Shoes that look like the shoes in court thats involved in this case, i would have never worn those ugly ass shoes. The enquirer reporters were digging out material that the establishment press had missed. There was a key moment where evidence and the existence of it was broken by the National Enquirer. It had to be followed by most of the major publications in the country. Jennifer boulder sends me this polaroid picture of this washed out chain link fence and this tiny little stick figure. And way in the back. And he says maybe you can blow this up and see if o. J. s wearing the murder shoes. Something that the investigators during the murder trial had not done. Finding the shoes on o. J. s feet was a mission. And every Single Person in the news room was involved in that to some degree. O. J. Said i never wore those ugly ass things, so we spent three months and tens of thousands of dollars hiring every sports photographer we could to go look through their old negatives. Every photographer who shot every nfl game that o. J. Had been at, we called one by one, slowly but surely, all of them, asked them to look. Larry haley found the guy. Mainly they were trying to do it by finding a purchase. They were right there in buffalo and there wasnt just one of them. There was a whole frame of o. J. Simpson walking on the sidelines where you can see the soul that left the footprints around Nicole Browns head right there in that picture. It was like finding a holy grail. It was so exciting. It was like we really did something that made a difference. O. J. Simpson and his attorneys when we ran this were saying we made this up, we put the shoes on his feet. Three other photographers had pictures from the same game of o. J. Wearing the same shoes. We also had 33 other pictures taken at two different locations, one in pittsburgh where he was getting his shoes shined after a sideline commentary in the basement of a hotel across from the stadium. That image was used as major evidence against o. J. Simpson. It won the Goldman Family and nicoles family in a civil trial. Because o. J. Was found guilty based upon that photo of him in the shoes. Those ugly ass shoes, changed the enquirer immediately. If you were there, you would have found them too. Main stream guys suddenly saw uhoh, we wish they had stayed with ufos. The establishment press finally had to admit that they were being beaten by a sleazy supermarket tabloid. Any newspaper in america would like the New York Times to call them the bible of a major story like this. Why did you put steve goes and the National Enquirer. Theyve become more respectable and i think it began to seep in for better or worse into the main stream press what the tabloids do. So it could have been for worse too . It could be influential for worse . The line between tabloid and main stream journalism has become blurred. You know, everyone talked about the main stream press versus the National Enquirer. Lets remember the National Enquirer is the best selling weekly in america, so whos defining main stream. O. J. Simpson caused the wheels of traditional journalism to fall off. Thats the moment when traditional journalism begins this fast slide into tabloidism. Uh uh, no way come on, no no nnnnono only discover has no annual fee on any card. It wont wait for a convenient time. Nnnnono or for hospitals to get back to normal again. Thats why, at Cancer Treatment centers of america, we arent waiting. Were right here, still focused on the only thing we do, providing worldclass cancer care, all under one roof. Because cancer isnt just what we do, its all we do. Cancer Treatment Centers of america. Call now for an appointment. When things are tough, do we stop . No. We keep going. We make plans and sow seeds. We adapt. We make food. Stock shelves. We keep others safe and spirits up. We show our love and thank heroes. We support food banks and those in need. When things are tough, we keep going. Because this is how we move forward. Now through may 17, enjoy free access to the best shows and movies from favorites like hbo, showtime, starz and for the first time ever, hulu and peacock watch the show starring that guy you saw in that other thing. You know the one. Or the series this kid on reddit says is legit, punch emoji, explosion emoji. Even the one with the actor people say looks just like your boss. And maybe sounds like him too. Put your phones down. Everyones got a show to recommend. Watch the best for free. Just say watchathon into your voice remote, or download the Xfinity Stream app. As a parent i want to protect children. I brought the children out here for a holiday and i would appreciate the space. I understand that. Weve had 15 cameras following us today. The National Enquirer was on this incredible roll. We had o. J. Simpson, the john benet story, cosby, all these great stories. And then in 1997, we have a cover out on the stands which says sexmad di, i cant get fuf had. We didnt have the first picture of she and dodie together on the boat so we bought the second set. Probably the biggest mistake we ever made unknowingly. We closed on a friday night and ran it pretty small inside. And that paper went to press. And di died that night in the car crash. The car was traveling extremely fast. We were on motorcycles or scooters for reasons we dont yet know. The accident happened late at night in a road tunnel in paris. An unconfirmed source from the press association is that diana, princess of wales has died. Steve was immediately called by cnn and everybody wants to comment because they were all saying the paparazzi were chasing them. None of those photographer wrs workers for the National Enquirer. Paparazzi have gone over the top and this is obviously a senseless tragedy. Because of that headline on the cover, the enquirer was pulled from every news stand in america. The enquirer headquarters in montana was besieged by crowds and crowds of people accusing us of killing diana. The real cause of death was the drunken driver of the limb zeen but it had everyone believing. This is not a time for incrimination but for sadness. However i always said i believed the press would kill her in the end but not even i thought they would take such a hand in her death. Every proprietor and editor that has paid for photographs of her encouraging greedy and ruthless individuals to risk everything in pursuit of dianas image has blood on his hands today. Princess di is dead, and who should we see about that . The driver of the car . The paparazzis . Or the magazines and papers who purchase these pictures and make bounty hunters out of photographers . Then it got very personal. It was just like george clooney, for example, and others pointing fingers and saying steve, you have blood on your hands, youre a murderer, you killed the princess. And as for you and your colleagues, the princess of wales is dead and you have gone on television and washed your hands and placed blame and you have deflected responsibility and yet i wonder how you sleep at night. You should be ashamed. Thank you. I to blame one institution, ie, the National Enquirer for the paparazzis on the planet is ridiculous. The paparazzis started and existed before the National Enquirer existed. The first private knowledge about the celebrities is what fuels the paparazzi. We were awardwinning journalism for four years, and now suddenly were blamed for princess dis death and i personally was blamed. The National Enquirer and their ilk believe they have a right to entrud on your privacy and to make your private life public. To sell newspapers, does it sell magazines . Of course it does. But what are we doing to ourselves with that and what are we doing to these people . Because they are the National Enquirer they flirt dangerously with lawsuits. Steve coz consults with the papers lawyer, a man by the name of david kindle who also represents the president of the. C we break stours. We go after news makers. We dont care if theyre politicians or celebrities. We cover news makers that we think americans want to read about. When are the reports about an officials personal life valid, and what is the impact on the public . Have the media gone nuts in covering this story, or is this one of those cases where there is no such thing as too much . The enquirer getting the scoop just weeks after rocking the establishment press by breaking the story of what it called Jesse Jacksons love child. We didnt go after them. We didnt promote them. We didnt stand up for them. We didnt say vote for this guy or hes a good guy or bad guy. They went out and did things like cheat on their wife and have affairs with interns or whatever, and thats something we reacted to because thats something people wanted to read. We didnt say oh hes a democrat, hes a republican, we didnt get this one, well leave him alone. Believe me, if we had george bush doing blow, we would have done it. That changed when management changed. That changed when david pecker took over. Two of the nations liveliest tabloids, the National Enquirer and the star are being taken over by the new owners who want to extend the wellknown titles beyond the supermarket. First time i encountered david pecker was when he arose to the head of a french Media Company. At that time they had car and driver and womens day. His most famous magazine was when he backed jfk, jr. In george magazine. George understands culture is more powerful than politics. The traditional lines between democrats and republicans is disappearing. The magazine theyll turn to for a fresh, nonpartisan perspective will be george. David peck erin cysted he had to have pictures of himself in with jfk, jr. He knew he was latching on to something bigger than himself then. Pecker is a man who wants to drive around in limousines, wants to belong to the best clubs, and wants to be known as a celebrity himself. David pecker is not a journalist. He was brought into media because of his financial ak minute. People called him a bean counter for lack of a better guy, a financial guy. He was seen as more of a scrappy bronx kind of guy. I think he probably always felt something of an outsider because of that. He always wanted to be a little grander than he was. He is a short guy who wanted to be taller. And one of the ways you get taller is by being a friend of powerful people and doing them favors. Or you do it by savaging people and making people fear you. And hes done both. David pecker had designs on this machine called the National Enquirer early on. He bought the paper in 1999. And the plan was to create a Media Company to rival time, something to be at the forefront of mass media in america. That was his goal and he stated it right out of the gate. He wants to go to an advertisementdriven vehicle, polish the tabloids, make them slicker, make them more new york. He wanted to drag this tabloid empire upscale. People arent buying the National Enquirer to be upscale. The whole idea was a bad idea. He really never wanted to learn what this animal was that was us. The enquirer, were the people that work there. And then came the job cuts. You know, he immediately slashed staff. Expense accounts were being scrutinized. Budgets were slashed. There was less content and more filler. With the enquirer, david pecker knew he had a way to reach Middle America, fly by america, supermarket america. Maybe not as influential as it was a few years earlier, but it was still a Pretty Healthy company when he took over. In 2001, david pecker built his ami building which was always his dream. And that was pretty quickly followed by 9 11. And that was a confluence of events that changed everything pretty drastically all at the same time. The fbi is searching the site of the first deadly anthrax attack. That building is boca raton, florida. It houses the Company American Media Incorporated which publishes tabloid newspapers including the National Enquirer. The building was sealed off so the fbi and cdc can search the facility looking at packages and mail that may have been delivered to the building. The whole world was in trauma over 9 11. And to have a trauma like that hit a month later close to home where the man you sit next to dies, it was terrifying. The man who died of anthrax was a photo editor there. The man exposed to the disease worked in the mail room. It was a Huge National fear that anthrax was going to spread across the country. And there was a particular fear that you could contract anthrax through employees of the National Enquirer. Within a week, we ran a page one story, bioterrorism attack, that this had occurred to us. Why would they attack American Media . Why would they attack the National Enquirer . Its a piece of americana. Its a patriotic magazine, and thats why i believe we were attacked. Do you fear a tremendous loss of business . Yes, larry, i do. The World Trade Center was attacked. The pentagon was attacked. And American Media was attacked. You, American Media, publisher of these many tabloids, were targeted . I think so, yes. And does the bureau think that . Have the police thought that, or is this a david pecker thought . This is a david pecker thought. I feel we had a bioterrorist attack here. Management decided that we needed to be more patriotic. That was the word that was used. And to support the war effort that was coming. We needed to show that we were strong. People love to have patriotic stories on the front. I think that they had found another nerve that they were hitting on the readership by doing these post9 11 stories. We must have put out probably five special commemorative editions that were slicker and glossier. Because remember at our bones, were patriotic. Our readers believed in the u. S. Government just like they believed in america. Time for a [whistle] charlie, cocktail . Bobby . Mimi . Rodrigo, marchello . Professor smith, would you care to join me for a cocktail in the lounge . Uncle cliff, look at you. Maurice have you met kendall . Kendall have you met maurice . Elanor, back from paris i see. Miss livingston, care to set the mood . Well, i believe were in good company. Lets drink to that. Lets drink to that. vo what does it mean to be americas most Reliable Network . It means helping those who serve stay connected to their families. And now verizon wants to give them something back. Our best pricing ever. 30 per line for all nurses, teachers, first responders, military, and their families. Not for a few months, but for as long as they need. Plus, up to 700 off the oneplus 8. Because the people we rely on deserve a network they can rely on. Only roomba uses 2 multisurface rubber brushes to clean all your floors. And with patented dirt detect technology, roomba finds dirt throughout your home. If its not from irobot, its not a roomba. What a greeting. Wow. Thank you. From a body building career, i have gotten a large female following. You know, you have situations where women absolutely take their clothes off in front of you. This woman just took off her clothes and stood there naked, and she says take me. Yeah, baby. I mean, sometimes it takes a little bit of respect away that one has for women. I first met Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987. I was part of the team that covered his marriage to maria shriver. Arnold wasnt the least bit selfconscious about interacting with the press. He brought maria out of the church on the steps and posed for photographs. He was eating up press, and we had never encountered a celebrity like that. So, there was always a lot of goodwill toward arnold. Come on, all right. Coming up, back and forth, oh, i see some sexy bodies out there twisting. Wow. But the down side was arnold was a womanizer. Weve had stories on the sets of movies where he would harass women all the time. He cant even deny it at this point. He didnt drug people like bill cosby did to my knowledge, but he was out there constantly cheating on his family. We would catch him from time to time, and that didnt deter him until he developed political aspirations. On the big screen, hes currently trying to save the human race. In the real life hes happy to limit himself to the people of california. Im going to run for governor. So, just as the campaign was gearing up, the reality was what are we going to do with all these stories about affairs and his cheating on maria . And david pecker choraled all the bad stories and assured him that during the campaign he had nothing to worry about. This time, American Media was making very highly leveraged yields for things like the joe weiner publications, muscle and fitness, magazines that featured Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold by this time was on the board of directors at American Media. He was in charge of several of the ypublications. So, arnold came along with the furniture. Arnold was family at that point. And he and david pecker became close friends. Arnold schwarzenegger had become forbidden fruit. He was taken off the menu because he made friends with the management. And if you went against the management, you were out of a job. Which brings us to the concept of catch and kill. There had been stories done on arnold having an affair with this young actress. He was seeing her off and on for ten years, a woman by the name of gigi goi et. Approximately two years after the story was released in the National Enquirer, i got a call from American Media. And they were interested in the rights to my life story, specifically my story with arnold. And i metzger ri geor jerry geo. It was a summer afternoon. We sat down at a table. He pulled out a yellow envelope, legal envelope, with a threepage contract in it. We proposed to her that if she sold us the rights to her story, we ultimately would develop them in term of a book and possibly a television movie. And he was, like, kind of buttering me up like this is going to be great. Were going to do a booksigning tour. Youll go all over the country. Trust us. Sign the rights to your story over. Well take care of you. David pecker decided to buy up her life story, all rights, and American Media took the contract, put it in the safe, closed the door, and never moved any further on that project. They didnt want to publish my story. They didnt even want to see the story. They didnt care. That was not their intent. And i was part of it. Not my proudest professional moment. But i was the editor on that, and i executed the contract with her. Unbeknownst to me, it was to silence my story from ever hitting the stands because Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for governor. If you play by the rules, this country is truly open to you. You can achieve anything. The public didnt think that the National Enquirer had a point of view. They thought the enquirers point of view was cover everybody, hold truth to power. But i dont think people expected them to be burying stories as part of their political agenda. The public was, in a sense, deceived into not seeing the point of view that was really driving a lot of the agenda. I find it very interesting that the same thing that happened to me with American Media also happened with Stormy Daniels and karen mcdougal. The mcdougal story never ran in the tabloid. He worked with pecker to bury it, operating at the request of the candidate with the principle purpose of influencing the election. This is about the most powerful people in the country having the ability to silence and change the news narrative at will. And i think that the public should know that. And look, ill defer to the election law experts. They say this is worth scrutinizing. Normally speaking these organizations dont get information in order to bury it. Thats whats different here. Theyre talking about silencing women and being involved in silencing women with hush payments. Its a whole different order of magnitude that i had never heard of before. I dont know how many of these there are. Those are the ones we know of, but certainly these were relationships that helped powerful figures maintain their image. And i know some people who worked at the National Enquirer and they are good, solid reporters. Its just that when they veer into other areas like trying to overtly help a candidate win the presidency, that is something different. When youre talking about the enquirer and youre talking about what happened with donald trump, it is the ultimate corruption, the idea that you would kill a story to help the aspirations of a politician, a businessman to make money, whatever. It is as corrupt as anything you can do as a journalist, as corrupt as you can be. David pecker saw trump as somebody he should buddy up to. You know, hey, were both new yorkers, we both have operations in florida. David pecker was known to bump into donald trump in the airport and hitch a ride on his private jet back to new york. They were sort of fellow travellers. Pecker liked Donald Trumps style. I think donald trump liked the ability to be in a publication that people were reading and there was a symbiosis there. Both of them had something that the other needed, wanted, craved. And then it grew from there. David pecker brought a silent editor with him to the enquirer and it was donald trump. Trump could not only control coverage of his own life, but he could also offer up story ideas on his enemies. And he did so frequently. Its obviously been a very rough and tumble week between you and donald trump. A salacious story was published about you in the National Enquirer. Unsubstantiated claims about ted cruz including marital and his father worked with lee harvey oswald. There was a front page of the National Enquirer which does have credibility. Trump spread those stories to bash his republican rival all while claiming he had nothing to do with the tabloid behind the allegations. The National Enquirer carved out a stake in the trump candidacy pretty early on. Which meant that a lot of the material they put out was suddenly influencing opinions. You know the National Enquirer in its history has never endorsed a president ial candidate until donald trump. First time i realized the National Enquirer had become partisan was years after i left when i walk sbood my local supermarket and saw the cover and i had to do a second look. It was a huge story that said how donald trump is going to make America Great again. That is so foreign to anybody who worked at the National Enquirer, that concept that that is a page one story is ludicrous. And at the same time, every time you saw Hillary Clinton on the cover, he was either all alone, on the way to the hospital, dying. And thats when i went, uhoh, somethings going on here. Today, the National Enquirer is selling about 150,000 copies, 200,000 copies. So, you might ask why does the National Enquirer have any relevancy in todays world . Theres a very simple reason for that. The National Enquirer when you think about it is the most perfectly placed piece of propaganda in america that is seen by 100 Million People a week, probably more. Its right there in your face. Its like buying a banner ad on a highway except the highway happens to be the conveyer belt. So, if you have a political message, its a great place to put it. I think the thing that people dont realize is just how creepy the operations are. I dont think any of us will ever know what really happened between david pecker and donald trump and the deals that were made and the thousands of deals that are made every day by the powerful. In early 2018, American Media published a tribute magazine to the crown prince of saudi arabia. Well make it a glossy, and well put the prince on the cover. And itll be a onetimeonly deal and well rack it at walmart for 13. And well make saudi arabia look like paradise. Wont the saudis like that . David pecker was no fool. He knew that there was a saudi sovereign investment fund. Perhaps American Media was hoping that they would get a slice of it. The fear and the speculation was there was ulterior motives on this, that it was not a straight up hey, heres a top figure that will sell like brad pitt or Angelina Jolie or the kardashians. But they were giving him that treatment. I dont think it resonated with Middle America though. So, why were they doing it . What is going on here . I dont know. The two leading theories seem to be that ami is either doing the saudis dirty work, president trumps dirty work, or a combination of the two. Jeff bezos accusing the National Enquirer of blackmail and extortion. It is a shocking, deeply personal postpublished online. Ami threatened to blackmail bezos. Claims of extortion, blackmail, coming from the worlds richest man. This publication by the National Enquirer might have been politically motivated. Jeff bezos owns the Washington Post which the president regularly pillar ris for coverage. We have ten photos of you sexual in nature. In some ways all publicity is good publicity. Theres also a stench to this. Trump is trying to take out bezos with a farreaching conspiracy. They messed with the wrong guy and they have found that out. This is the stuff tabloid dreams are made of. What the hell happened . The enquirer got overtaken by main stream media who outenchoired the enquirer. Qchoired the enquirer. Uchoire enquirer. Echoired the enquirer. Dchoired the enquirer. Hoired the enquirer. Oired the enquirer. Ired the enquirer. Why cant all my bills be like this . I dont know mama. Bye mama, love you. Anthony . Umph at tmobile, taxes and fees are included. And right now, when you switch your family, get 4 lines of unlimited for just 35 a line. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. Thats when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. 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Almost as easy as having those guys help you move. We are those guys. Thats you . The truck adds 10 pounds. In the arms. Okay. Transfer your Service Online in a few easy steps. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Transfer your service in minutes, making moving with xfinity a breeze. Visit xfinity. Com moving today. A lot of people used to understand the line between some of the things National Enquirer and does and what the main stream press does. And i think that peoples understanding of that has trumped. I think it has eroded. And i think that has all contributed to a bad cycle. Its almost impossible in our culture today to have a factbased debate. We cannot agree on the facts. That is a terrible place to be. Sometimes we are guilty of enjoying things we shouldnt enjoy, of talking about things we shouldnt be talking about, of claiming something as a fact when its not a fact. So, in that sense, we are really children of the National Enquirer. A south florida holiday tradition in underway tonight at the headquarters of National Enquirer tabloid. Don is live in front of what they call the Worlds Largest christmas tree. Do you believe its the Worlds Largest . I believe it is. The tree is 126 feet high. In many ways, i want to defend this kind of journalism because it has a place. In other ways, i theres a very shameful aspect to it as well. There was distortion. And there was the degrading of the basic journalistic spirit. Im not happy about what i did, but im not that unhappy either. I look at this now and im thinking man, oh, man. How did we get a tabloid subject whos now president of the United States . And do i have any shame in this, potential guild of my own . You know, this is the world of tabloid. Who the hell knows . Youre not playing strategy. Youre not playing a war game. Hell, youre just trying to get a page one that will sell next week. So, what can i say . I was a journalist. I declare before you all that my whole life shall be devoted to your service. For over 100 years, the royal family have cultivated this image of the perfect happy family. Royal lives have glorious, all these glamorous fairytale elements. There were 750 Million People around the world all with their eyes on charles and diana. For better, for worse. For better, for worse. Til death us do part. Til death us do part. The upcoming coronation for the queen is an incredibly frightening prospect. She looked very vulnerable and alone. What a weight is on this girls shoulders. The queen is now the head of the royal family. She has the biggest job in the world. I was being let into the secret that diana was deeply unhappy. She talks about three people in her marriage. Diana was duped into this whole situation. All three of the queens children were married. All the marriages ended badly. Once that image of perfect family life becomes tarnished, what do they represent to the nation . It remains to be seen whether the royals can survive. The press in britain is unrelenting. When you marry into the royal family, the level is simply unparamount. Excuse me. I dont think william and harry will ever forgive the role of the press in the death of their mother. People felt a kinship with her. People wanted to meet her. You could hear it, people cry. William. I do not believe grief changes who you are. Grief, if you let it, can reveal depths you did not know you had. We must be nothing less than the whole of ourselves. There is a motto which has been bourn by many of my ancestors, a noble motto. I serve