Scandalous: The True Story of the National Enquirer (2019) - full transcript

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 it's a bad time
for the truth.

Lantana, Florida,
population 7,126,

according to the last census,

an undistinguished
South Florida town on U.S. One

about ten miles south
of Palm Beach, Florida,

an unlikely place, you'd think,
to be the home

of one
of America's most successful



publishing enterprises,

and yet Lantana, Florida,

is the home
of the National Enquirer.

Generoso Pope Jr.,
a transplanted New Yorker,

Godfather of this magazine,
journal, newspaper.

Gene Pope
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.

Generoso Pope
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 beginning.
- Right. I've heard.

I've read that.

Generoso Pope Jr.
was the son of Generoso Pope.

Gene Pope was born
into privilege.

His father owned Il Progresso,

an Italian-language paper
in New York.

Because of that,

he was a huge political figure
in America.

Gene was a child prodigy
in many ways.

I mean, at 16, he was helping
to run Il Progresso.

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 owned.

Il Progresso
was not the kind of newspaper

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,

which was a crappy little pape,
mainly racing and sports,

but he needed 75,000 to buy it.

Believe it or not,
Gene Pope's real Godfather

was the Godfather,
Frank Costello,

who was a big guy
in the mob obviously.

That's where he got the money,

and it was
an interest-free loan. Why?

Because he was like family.

It's 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.

One day, he was driving
on one of the New York highways,

and there was an accident ahea,
and everybody slowed down.

They're all rubbernecking,

and they're looking at the side
of the road.

And he looked
at the crowd, and he saw

all these people staring
at a really gory scene.

He went, "My God,
nobody's doing pictures

of that."

He suddenly realized,

"This is what I have to do.
I got to make a gore rag."

So what he did is that he went
to the police department.

He basically got first dibs

on the photography
of these horrible accidents,

and that's how it started.

I got to tell you,
when I first saw it,

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 gonna take him so far.

Circulation peaked
at one million,

but he dreamed actually
of 20 million,

which, of course, was insane.

By the mid-'60s,

many, many people were moving
to the suburbs,

so they weren't stopping
at newsstands,

and the idea was,

"We've got to get it in front
of more people."

Well, where are the people?

There is madness
in the marketplace.

Just listen to this.

We zeroed in on supermarkets

as the one area where I suppose

some member of every family unt
in the United States

comes once a week at least.

He wanted to be racks
at the front end

of every checkout counter
in the United States.

People told him, "Great idea,
but you can't do this.

A gore paper, how could
that get into supermarkets?"

People would throw up

just at a time when they were
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 happened to discover
that Jimmy Carter

had once seen a UFO.

Gee-whiz stories.

We did one on making cars
out of lobsters.

We had some guy called up

wanting to know
where he could buy one.

Our headlines,
our pictures, our front page,

and all of them
had to be a triggering mechanim

to get people's attention first,

and if they liked
what they saw, they bought it.

Generoso Pope
really understood the psycholoy

of the average American person.

He used to call the reader
of the National Enquirer

Missy Smith in Kansas City.

She was the standard
by which every story

in the National Enquirer
was judged.

The basic American woman.

She was somebody
who had family values,

who loves stories,
loves celebrities

and wanted to know essentially
that celebrities suffered, too.

Mrs. Smith goes
to the beauty parlor,

talks to her girlfriends.

They're all chatting
about celebrities.

Dolly Parton is depressed,

or Elizabeth Taylor
got fat again

and can't find love.

She would go, 'Ugh,"
and have to read all about it.

We were Missy Smith
in Kansas City.

I guess I'm a little nosy.

We were Missy Smith in Yonkers.

They can't print something
in there that's 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 a 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 through,
a pleasant place to go

after the harsher news
in the real world.

Guns, ammunition,
explosives

and at least one pipe bomb.

I don't think
Pope wanted the outside world

to spill over into the Enquirer.

Our philosophy,
I guess you'd call it,

is basically that,
in all the other media,

the people are getting
all the bad news today.

They're getting swamped with it,
inundated with it,

and I think
they've just about had it.

I think they're searching
for something

that's gonna tell them
there's a good side to life.

Everything isn't bad.

Pope was
a conservative man.

Was he a Republican or Democrat?

I never knew.
I could never tell.

Uh, he was a Democrat.

I never knew him to be
anything but that.

But he wasn't somebody

who was interested
in getting elected

or having a hand in Washington.

Uh, that wasn't his bag.

Because he came
from a rich Italian family,

which was Mafia-related.

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.

I mean, we weren't
the conscience of the world.

We were interested in stories
that would sell paper.

The National Enquirer
was a place where,

you know,
facts were not important.

Uh, 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.

It's always been fake-ish.

In other words,
there was a nub of truth

to most of the stories
that printed.

We would sensationalize
that germ of truth

to make it very palatable

and very desirable
to the reader.

We used to call that
exploding the nub.

Things were exploded.

You'd just take a story,

and you make it
more interesting.

You don't change the facts.
You just sensationalize it.

That's what tabloids do.

Generoso Pope decided
that 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 offie

at that time was through
a beautiful, tropical garden.

And you walk in
to this gigantic newsroom,

which is buzzing...

...editors who are bent over
their desks

and calling all over the world.

Is this overseas
from Melbourne, Australia?

Well, we have some questions
on that UFO story.

Everybody's typing.

Everybody's furiously
on the phone.

It was a... like
a journalistic beehive.

Controlled chaos.
It really was.

Rotary phones
and ashtrays.

Cigarettes
and cigars everywhere.

God knows why we didn't 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.

I have but a moment
to reach Henry Green.

And why... why do...
why do you liken Hoover

to a European dictator?

Okay, John. This is story 207.

Pope likes London journalists

schooled in scandal
and the various successes

of the British penny press.

Oh, those papers had
the most saucy stories,

and they didn't spare
any details at all.

They went for the jugular,

and he said,
"I got to have me those guys.

That's 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 Iain Calder.

By age 25,
I'd worked on three papers,

including the biggest paper
in Scotland.

That's where I really learned
this craft.

Iain Calder had worked
on the Glasgow Record

and was used
to chasing fire engines

and doing a lot of, kind of,
scurrilous stuff.

People were slashing
rival reporters' tires,

cutting people out
on the doorstep.

Calder came
from that background.

Every story you went out on,
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 didn't want to be in.
We didn't take no for an answe.

We're guys who were raised
on checkbook 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 didn't have it.

Some of them did.
Some of them developed it

but only under our tutelage.

I was looking for, like,
U.K. type reporters,

and the only reason
I needed them

was I couldn't find
great reporters in America.

We were in 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,

"Would it be easier
to tell people I was in prison

or a mental hospital
for a couple 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 can't go from Harvard
to the National Enquirer."

The prospect of writing
for a 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 Pope

owned the National Enquirer
lock, stock, and barrel.

He had a fortune,
so he didn't care

what expenses racked up
chasing down stories.

If you could get his curiosity
going,

then you're gonna be doing it
and using his money.

You didn't 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 a private jet to Paris.

- Maui.
- Monaco.

Puerto Vallarta.

Vilcabamba.

We're staying in a luxury hote,
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 newspaper
or magazine

that I had worked for
ever offered.

Within the first two years,
I was making

as much as Ben Bradlee was
at The Washington Post,

and I thought,
"Man, that guy's underpaid."

One thing about the atmosphere

in the newsroom
at the National Enquirer

is you would have frivolity

and that sense
of energy going on,

but when Generoso Pope
walked through that newsroom,

everyone picked up a phone

and started talking like
they were doing an interview.

There was a tension
whenever he entered the room.

It was best if you didn't engae
with him until he knew you.

Couple of times he barked at me,
I nearly jumped out of my skin.

You suddenly realized

that you're dealing
with somebody

who's 100 percent ruthless.

He was a terrifying figure.

You didn't talk to Mr. Pope,
and he didn't talk to you.

After I'd been there
about six months,

I was walking down the corridor,

and he was walking towards me.
He looked down at me and said,

"Hi, David." I thought,
"Oh, Jesus. He knows my name.

This is very bad."

We were instructed
not to look him in the eye.

He never once looked me
in the eye

the entire time
I worked for him.

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, that he hired,

weren't 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

and you got page ones
and big stories,

well, 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,
we'd 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 catered event
every Friday night.

- Turkeys, full hams.
- Shrimp.

And a full ice-cream-sundae ba.

And all the booze
you could possibly drink.

Beer, wine, everything.

Of course, all of us
would all get very drunk.

Pope would sit
in the middle of the newsroom

smoking his cigarettes.

But somebody would be fired
before that dinner was over.

It was the Friday night massacre
and this was ruthless.

Security would just come
to a reporter's desk,

escort them out of the building,

and hand them a paycheck
on the way out.

You never knew who was going
to 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 don't come back

until you have it.

The National Enquirer
at its zenith was a spy network.

You couldn't go into hospital

without somebody
calling the Enquirer,

because they were
all getting paid.

We might have stories
from your sister,

your brother, your boyfriend.

It was important to know
the hair stylist.

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 lawyer's office,
someone in your agent's office.

And the agents
double-dipped all the time.

That's, like,
standard operating procedure.

The average snitch
with just a silly little tip

would be getting 300 bucks.

If the tip made the cover,
it was more like 5,000,

six thousand, ten thousand.
We're talking about big bucks.

I mean, you...
you were not supposed to pay

for news. Um, you know,
when I was at the New York Post,

um, you would pay for photos,
um,

but that's very, very different.
A lot of outlets do that.

Um, you do not pay
for information.

The mainstream media
went after us

saying we paid sources.
We said, "Yes, we do."

Listen. If they've got
the information,

they should be paid for it.

When I started
at the National Enquirer

as a reporter,

I didn't 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.

male reporter:

Okay.

I had a story about Bob Hope,

and it was about all
of his philandering

and some of his mistresses
and all this, so I...

I wrote it up. I submitted it.
Mr. Pope got it,

and he said to me,

"Barbara,

I don't 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's a scandal?
There's a negative story?

Oh, in exchange,
we'll do Bob Hope at home.

We'll make a deal with you

to do nice stories,
and you'll cooperate with us,

and we'll take
beautiful pictures,

and all that other stuff
will go away,"

and then you'd have an ongoing
relationship with them.

It's like getting them
on the hook,

and then they have
to keep giving you

these positive stories.
It's protection money,

and that's how the Mafia works.

We were the only people
that celebrities had to fear

if they did something wrong.

They had to worry
about the Enquirer knowing

'cause we knew...

I wouldn't say everything,
but we knew a heck of a lot.

male reporter:

male reporter:

- All right.
- We'll...

And there were
several people with him,

and we don't have
the information yet as to who..

Some of the things
that we did to get a story,

uh, blurred the lines
of legality, I would say.

I mean, I've done dirty tricks.
Oh, my Lord.

Phones were bugged

by private detectives
employed by the Enquirer.

People's mail
was sometimes being read,

taken out of letter boxes
and opened and resealed and...

and what have you.

Was there things
that were done

that were questionable,

outright illegal?

Maybe.

I've loved him for nine years!

Elvis was everything
to an Enquirer reader.

Elvis Presley
could make or break

a whole tabloid.
It could make or break

a whole tabloid
reporter's career.

Elvis Presley, the longtime kig

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 five o'clock

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
fifty thousand dollars 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'd 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 Holiday Inn,

booked up every room
in the hotel.

We had fax machines going
and photocopying machines.

Yeah, we turned the hotel
into a newspaper office.

And they put out the word

that if anybody has got
anything, we'll pay them.

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 people's deaths.

Before the funeral,

Elvis Presley's 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 one-of-a-kind.

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 what's the ultimate picture
that you're gonna get of Elvis?

Elvis in the coffin.

That was an operation
that was highly secret,

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 bid him farewell.

We dressed up a portly,
older British gentleman

as a priest, and he was in line.

He got to the casket.
And underneath his robe,

he had
a little miniature camera.

But he couldn't get high enough
to get the picture,

so we didn't have that.

One of our photographers

saw Elvis' cousin going
to a local bar.

And he followed him in,
and as the guy's standing ther,

he says to him, "How'd you like
to make a lot of money?"

Guy says, "Oh,
I'd love to, mate."

He said, "If I gave you
a camera,

could you get a picture
of Elvis in his coffin?"

"Sure."

Unfortunately,
it didn't 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 'round
the wrong way.

Okay. Second one...
picture of the chandelier.

I go, "Oh, my God."

The third one
was just brilliant.

It was the perfect
page-one picture.

We sold 6.9 million copies
that week.

People were stealing copies.
This was so huge.

Mary Jane buys
the paper. She gives it to mom.

Mom gives it to niece.
Niece gives it to her husband.

There were 25 million readers
a week.

The Enquirer had
so much mail

that they had
their own ZIP code, 33464.

Thousands and thousands
of letters a day.

We were bigger
than Time magazine.

We were bigger than Newsweek.

We sold more copies
than anyone else.

This is your favorite magazine,
the National Enquirer.

Here we go again.

Iain Calder on dirt.

At the National Enquirer,
we uncover more dirt than anyone

except possibly
this Hoover cleaner

with attached tools and hose.

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 gonna sell four
and a half, five million copies.

So every single week,
it just 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 pla.

When somebody dies, it's like,

"Okay. Let's bad-mouth them
as much as possible.

Let's put it in the Enquirer."

John Belushi dying
was a big story,

but we always wanted to do
the story behind the story.

That's what sold papers.

So, uh, I picked two
really great reporters.

Uh, Tony Brenna and I,
who was my partner in that.

I think Haley
was a very competent journalist,

even by Enquirer standards.

I was in Lantana in March
when he died

at the Chateau Marmont.

We wanted to know
what happened that night,

and there was this mystery woman
whose name wasn't released.

They called her Cathy Silverbags

because she sold drugs
out of a silver purse.

Cathy Evelyn Smith

listed her profession
as backup singer.

Police questioned
but then released her.

So Smith,
a 35-year-old

rock-'n'-roll groupie,
went home to Toronto.

We then went up to Canada
to find Cathy Smith.

We spent about ten days
in a hotel room.

And the story came in,
and I say,

"You know, this woman is saying
that she killed John Belushi.

She's not saying it."
I said, "I want that headline."

I said, "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

and had a great time
and became her best friends.

And she didn't want to say it.

Tony had a tape reporter going.

I had one going.
She would say,

"Yeah. I... We were responsible
for his death, but I...

- We can't say that."
- I said, "Oh, c'mon, Catherine.

Let's 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.

You know,
Brenna turns his tape off.

I leave mine running.

So I ended up taping her...

confessing to the murder.

So anyway,
they got her to say it.

We ran this front-page story,
"I killed John Belushi."

It's the murder confession.

It's all the details.

She was John Belushi's...

Florence Nightingale
with a needle.

Well, it's not something
Cathy Smith is going to say.

It's not something most people
are gonna say,

but you say, you know,

"You were sort of like
a Florence Nightingale

with a needle.
That's what you're saying."

She says, "Yeah. That's right."

She's being fed a quote.

That's how it works.

We knew
that what she was saying

was gonna be self-incriminating,

and that she would probably
be arrested for it, and she was.

So the prosecutor's office
went nuts.

In an Enquirer article,

written by Brenna and Haley,

Smith appears to confess
to 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 reporter

had to show up by subpoena
to a grand-jury

murder investigation
on a major celebrity.

It was stressful.

Uh, actually,
my marriage fell apart.

Tony's fell apart first,

I followed pretty much
right behind him.

I felt that we had crossed
the line on that story.

We had, uh,

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 Belushi's story

would be one of the occasions
that got to be...

ethically challenging.

Becoming
a famous celebrity

is a trade-off.

You want the public
to admire you.

That's not free.
That's 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.

And she was a showgirl.

He bought a house for her,

and he would go up to Vegas
and visit her.

So I ordered a stakeout,
a photographer 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 into my editor.

Mr. Pope saw the story,
and he said,

"She's got to go
and call Cosby."

This was the time
that he was America's dad.

He had The Cosby Show
on television.

I'd been on the set many times.

I interviewed all the other
people on there,

and 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, uh,

"What's 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 Iain Calder,

who cut a deal with Cosby
to kill my story

in exchange for a couple
of sit-down interviews

with any reporter

except Barbara Sternig.

And that 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,

they would call in, you know,
"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 we'll say,
"We'll get back to you,"

but you learned,
at least for me early on,

I was brand-new. I'm still
trying to prove myself...

You didn't push it.

I was making trades

that would make
our readers happier,

but I had to make
that decision myself.

What's the better stories?

We were keen on any story
that would sell papers.

There's a sort of nasty
little characteristic

that people have.

They... they... they get
a little jealous of success.

They want to see somebody
taken down a peg or two.

It's like in ancient Rome, oka?

They cheer them
when they are famous,

and they cheer them
when they're doing well,

but when things go wrong,
they give them the thumbs-down

and say, "Good riddance.
To hell with them."

I intend to seek the presidency
of the United States in 1988.

The Enquirer, for a long time,
didn't touch politics

because Generoso Pope
didn't think politicians sold.

But politics became
another form of celebrity,

and that's where the Enquirer
got into it.

You can't underestimate
the significance of Gary Hart

to the National Enquirer.

We weren't interested
in doing stories

about potential
presidential candidates

and politicians, per se,

unless there was some,
really, other story.

Gary Hart was young.

He was good-looking.
He was from out west,

had friends like Warren Beatty

and a lot
of other Hollywood stars,

and the thought was
that he was gonna win

the Democratic nomination.

He was a meteor.

The Miami Herald came out
with their story,

a romance
between these two people.

Why is The Miami Herald engagin
in Enquirer type shit, you know?

And I thought, "Well,
why don't we try to see

if we can get a piece
of this whole action

and this Gary Hart thing
the Herald has got?"

All I can say is, a picture
is worth a thousand words.

male reporter 1:

male reporter 2:

male reporter 3:

He basically challenged
the press.

He said, "If you think I have
a girlfriend, go for it."

Come on.
That's the perfect setup

for being on a Enquirer
front-page story is,

good-looking, sexy,
lying politician.

male reporter 4:

Did I do anything immoral?
I absolutely did not.

He went on television.
He said, "It's not true.

It's absolutely not true.
We know it's not true,"

and he had his wife by his side
who stood by him.

And when Gary says,
"Nothing happened,"

nothing happened.

I mean, everybody knew
he'd had a thing with this gir,

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 freelancr

who knew
this photograph existed,

and we came to an arrangement.

It's 87,000 dollars,

and we owned worldwide rights
to that photo forever.

I couldn't have created
a better picture.

I couldn't 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 don't really want
to comment on that.

Dukakis took his place.

Read my lips.

No new taxes.

No chance
against George Bush,

so George Bush became
president...

...and his son
became president later.

We changed the course of histoy
with that.

Now, did we do well or not? I...

That's not my problem.
My problem is, we got the story.

The Gary Hart story
busted down the privacy wall,

just smithereens,
just knocked it down and said,

"We're gonna know everything
about everyone,"

because it sold more papers.

I think
it's important to journalists..

as to how they go after
the story,

as to what they see themselves.
Are they news gatherers?

Are they private eyes?
Are they voyeurs?

Mr. Pope died in 1988.

Then there was a limbo period

where things were
just kind of very tense...

and everybody was thrown
into a state

of complete uncertainty.
"What's gonna happen?

Will the paper keep going?"

Certainly, it was not going
to go on the way

Mr. Pope ran it,

because Mr. Pope owned
a 100 percent 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, we're giving
the public a little hope,

a little hope
that life isn't all

as bad as it's portrayed.

We like to tell people
that their problems

are solvable.
There are solutions.

Uh, things aren't 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,

and in my opinion,
they should've been left alone.

Is it entertainment,
or is it information?

I think it's both,
and I think a good newspaper

is a combination
of entertainment

and information.

One of my concerns
is that it dilutes

the news-gathering
process broadly

and that in the long run,
it affects me because...

my publisher
or Jack's publisher says,

"Oh, look at this stuff.
It's hot. It really sells.

Don't you think you ought
to be moving a little more away

from this boring
Sino-Soviet Summit stuff?"

You're forgetting
something.

There's nobody in this room
who doesn't deal in tragedy.

Nobody in this room...

How do you think
America found out

about Jessica Hahn

- and Jimmy Swaggart?
- But that's not trash.

That's... that's a great story!

Why don't we just
acknowledge that's what it is.

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.

Titillated America.

It was the heartache
and the betrayal,

and he's cheating,
and they're on ski slopes,

and he's bringing the mistress,

and the mistress
is in the hotel room over here,

and the wife is in
the hotel room over there.

It's a great story, right?
Everybody loves it.

This Marla Maples-
Donald Trump story

was occurring at the same time
that Nelson Mandela

was being released

from his years
in the South African gulag.

An event

of tremendous importance
to the world.

This was the purest example
of the movement

from tabloids
into the mainstream press.

And it also tells us something
about Donald Trump

and his rise through
the sensationalist press.

I don't know.

The biggest tipster
ever in the business

was Donald Trump.

He would call the tabloids
in New York

to drop gossip items
about himself.

Right. Okay.

He's had pseudonyms
where'd he call and pretend

that he was a spokesperson.

He really wanted to be a star.

- Do you have a second?
- woman:

We recognized
that Donald Trump had value

to the National Enquirer

because he could
sell newspapers.

He's 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,

and the gentleman's name
was Larry Haley,

and Larry's job was basically

to keep track
of Donald's love life.

I was offered the use
of his plane

from West Palm Beach
to New York and back

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 Mar-a-Lago.

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.

And it was the constant,
6:00 a.m. phone calls.

You know, I started feeling
very quickly

that I'm working for this guy,

but I'm not being paid
by this guy,

and I had to remind him
I don't work for him.

Trump married Marla,

and the two Enquirer reporters
were VIP invitees

at the wedding.

I'm happy and excited,

and it's the wedding
of the century.

- It'll be good.
- Thank you, Robin.

Everybody
in the country

believes that maybe
their relationship could work

if this relationship
will work, you know,

with all the things
that they've gone through,

and I think this will work.

- Okay.
- I give it four months.

Howard!

Donald!

I was there that night.

I was confronted
by Marla Maples,

and she was telling me
that she had gone after Donald

and got him,
and she was Mrs. Trump.

I said, "Well, I can't argue
with any of that,"

but, you know, basically,
she disliked me greatly,

because of a lot of the stuff
we revealed about her.

But Trump never got upset.
Even when they were married,

as long as it wasn't about him,
he was okay.

He would throw Marla
under the bus in a second

to not have
a bad publicity himself

and did more than once.

The Donald-Marla affair

had everything money, power,

a blonde bombshell,
combined with catchy headlines

and family feud.

Are you two
back together?

Well, we are right now,
aren't we, hon?

Um... um...

He was a guy
we wanted stories from.

At the same time,
he was studying

how we took things,
put them into headlines,

and sold them to this
common-man 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
what's happening next

with this particular celebrity,
and he had crossed that line.

People now wanted to know
about Donald Trump.

We've always had in this county

a kind of seamy underside
of the news business.

Tabloids. You know,
there's nothing new about it.

- Exactly.
- And our agenda

at newspapers and magazines

is increasingly
these guys' agenda.

But we all have the same boss.

It's the public,
and if we continue

this Columbia School
of Journalism rhetoric,

this rag rhetoric which says,

"People should... shouldn't be
reporting that.

They shouldn't be jamming
this down people's throats."

- My God, let the public decide.
- It's also very...

- Let the public decide!
- You're looking down

your nose at the public.

The public has a right to know
what it wants to know.

Now, now,
your point's well-taken, but...

We don't all have
to be porn publishers.

All right. But why...

No, I don't think that it's porn
to publish a story

about Tonya Harding

or Michael Jackson.

Whoever wants
to put that out there

to sell papers,
what's wrong with it?

Because if the lowest common
denominator

is gonna drive
the journalistic market,

- we're in big trouble.
- Connie Chung...

Let him finish.
I'll come back to you, Mike.

But let me finish.
Something has tipped.

People come out
and criticize us.

They call us lowlifes
of journalism,

give us obnoxious
anecdotal names.

We didn't care,
and I still don't care.

We were very good
at what we did.

Steve Coz 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 just new blood willing
to listen to new ideas.

Steve Coz brought

the National Enquirer out
of the Stone Age.

And he brought a lot
of credibility to the paper.

He didn't look like
a scruffy, old guy

with a cigar hanging out
of his mouth.

He was Ivy League, dresses
in his little polo shirts.

He looks polished.

You could have gone
to Time magazine

and seen somebody
who looked just like Steve Coz.

You know,
he went to Harvard,

but he wasn't that button-down.

He reminded me of, like,

a guy who'd been
a part-time bartender

in Nantucket.

Old-timers
from the U.K.,

uh, yes,
I think we all grinned a bit.

We said, "My God, we're working
for a schoolboy now", you know?

The Enquirer,
for the most part,

was all white people.
They had no minorities.

They were these old Brits
and old white guys

who didn't see women
or minorities of any importance.

We had to go in
and fight our way.

He encouraged diversity.

He encouraged
out-of-the-box thinking.

He was a person who knew

that growth depended on...
coming 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.

It's not the just
the same people all the time.

- Oh, yeah!
- And Oprah Winfrey

made the 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 a certain type of journalism
in this country.

I think it is important to note
the National Enquirer

has also gotten
some stories really right.

The newspapers used to say,
"Yeah. You get exclusives,

but if we were up against you,
face-to-face,

mano a mano, we would beat
the hell out of you."

Well, okay.
O.J. Simpson was the test.

On 911 tapes just released
last night,

O.J. Simpson could be heard
screaming about a 1993 article

in the National Enquirer.

Enquirer editors say,

they have been
following abuse allegations

against the former
football superstar since 1989.

Los Angeles police
have been talking

to former pro football star
O.J. Simpson today

after the death of his ex-wife

and a 26-year-old man
early this morning.

When the Simpson
murders occurred,

we knew this was
a seminal moment,

uh, for the National Enquirer.

We already had huge networks
in place

in the celebrity community,

and 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 freelancers.
We went

to every single photographer
we knew in L.A.

and told them
that we would pay them

any amount of money

for any photographs
they thought were relevant.

We spent easily
over a million dollars in soure

and photographic money.

The Enquirer's tentacles
were amazing in those days.

From Florida all the way
to L.A.,

we were all involved
in that story.

Homicide detectives expanded

the restricted area
around Nicole Simpson's

townhouse today.

Nicole's father, Louis, and one
of her sisters also arrived

and removed
some personal belongings.

We had a reporter
who was in really tight

with Nicole's family.

He was dating
both the daughters.

We had other people

who had contacts
with the Goldman family,

including Ron Goldman's mother
who lived in St. Louis.

We also had a network

into some of O.J. Simpson's
fellow athletes

and, don't forget,
O.J. Simpson's friends.

We had
a very good working relationshp

with the police.

We had moles
in the prosecutor's office,

and we had jailhouse sources,
as well.

We knew what he was saying.

We knew where he went
to the bathroom.

I mean, we had everything.

We 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 mainstream press,
often beating rivals

to the punch
on big headline stories.

A lot of the details,

uh, that have later turned up,
uh, in Newsweek

or on other television shows

have first been reported
in the Enquirer.

Our stories showed
more details on that crime

than any other publication.

We were constantly on it.
It was like a soap opera.

You just stay on them,
and anything you heard today,

"What's going on with him now?"

It was a story
that riveted the nation.

It was one of the first
cable-news national melodramas,

so people were glued
to their television sets,

and the National Enquirer,
essentially,

was a paper version of a T.V.

People had to follow them.

It was impossible
to ignore them.

The Enquirer's Coz says,
not only do readers love

their O.J. articles,
but their commitment to coverae

has brought new respect.

This is a fascinating,
interesting story.

The conventional press

is basically come
into the tabloid territory,

and, uh, they've come
to appreciate us.

The Bruno Magli makes shoes

that looked the shoe
that they had in court

that's involved in this case.

I would have never worn
those ugly-ass shoes.

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.

A kid from Boulder
sends me this Polaroid picture

of this washed-out,
chain-link fence

and this tiny,
little stick figure

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 Bruno Magli shoes
on O.J.'s feet

was a mission,

and every single person
in the newsroom

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
and asked them to look.

Larry Haley found the guy.

About a thousand cops
were trying to link

the shoes with O.J. Simpson.

Mainly, they were trying
to do it

through finding a purchase.

They were right there
in Buffalo.

And there wasn't
just one of them.

There was a whole frame
of O.J. Simpson

walking on the sidelines
where you can see that sole

that left the footprints
in blood

around Nicole Brown's head,
right there on that picture.

It was... it was
like finding the Holy Grail.

It was so exciting.

It was like we really did
something now

that made a difference.

O.J. Simpson and his attorneys,

when we ran that, were saying
that we made this up,

that we put the shoes
on his feet, right?

Three other photographers
had pictures from the same game

of O.J. wearing the same shoes.

We also
had 33 other pictures taken

in two different locations,
one in Pittsburgh

where he was getting
his shoes shined,

after a sideline commentary

in the basement of the hotel
across from the stadium.

That image was used

as the major evidence
against O.J. Simpson.

It won the Goldman family
and Nicole's family...

the civil trial

...because O.J.
was found guilty based upon

that photo of him
in the Bruno Magli shoes.

Those ugly-ass shoes changed
the Enquirer immensely,

because that's one of the times
that the mainstream media

had to give us credit,
because they were there.

You know, if you just
kept plugging away,

if you kept digging,
you would have found them, too.

The mainstream guys
suddenly said, "Uh-oh.

We wish they'd 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, um...

Walter, did you put Steve Coz
and the...

and the National Enquirer

among the 25 most
influential figures

in this country?

Uh, the Enquirer has broken
a lot of stories.

They've changed a lot
of the ways

they do their reporting
and their fact-checking.

They've become more respectable,

and I think
it began to seep in,

for better and worse,
into the mainstream press,

what the tabloids do.

So, it...

it could have been
for worse, too.

- Oh...
- You could be influential

for worse.

The line between tabloid

and mainstream journalism
has become blurred.

You know, everyone talks
about the mainstream press

versus the National Enquirer,
but you remember,

the National Enquirer
is the best-selling weekly

in America,
so who's defining mainstream?

O.J. Simpson caused the wheels

of traditional journalism
to fall off.

That... that's the moment
when traditional journalism

begins this fast slide
into tabloidism.

As a parent,
I want to protect children,

because I brought the children
out here for a holiday,

...and we'd really appreciate

- the space.
- I understand that.

We've had
15 cameras following us today.

The National Enquirer
was on this incredible roll.

We had O.J. Simpson,
the JonBenet story, Cosby.

We had all these great stories.

And then in 1997,

uh, we have a cover out
on the stands which says,

"Sex-mad Di,
'I can't get enough.'"

We didn't have
the first pictures

of she and Dodi together.
on the boat.

Um, another paper
had gotten those,

so, we bought
the second set of pictures

of she and Dodi on the boat,
and published them.

Probably biggest mistake
we ever made unknowingly.

We closed on a Friday night,

and we ran it pretty small
on the side...

and that paper went to press.

And Di died that night
in the car crash.

The car was traveling
extremely fast

in an attempt to escape
the attentions of the paparazz,

who were on motorcycles
or scooters,

uh, for reasons
we don't yet know.

The accident
happened late at night

in a road tunnel in Paris.

An unconfirmed...

uh, source
from the Press Association

is that Diana,
Princess of Wales, has died.

Steve was
immediately called by CNN,

and all this,
everybody wanted to comment

because they were all saying
the paparazzi were chasing them.

But because
of that headline on the cover,

the Enquirer was pulled

from every newsstand in America.

The Enquirer headquarters
in Lantana

was besieged by crowds

and crowds of people accusing s
of killing Princess Diana.

The real cause of her death

was the drunken driver
of her limousine,

but it was enough
to get everyone believing

that it was
the National Enquirer's fault,

and we lost circulation.

This is not a time
for recriminations

but for sadness.

However, I would say
that I always believed

the press would kill her
in the end...

but not even I could imagine
that they would take

such a direct hand in her death,
as seems to be the case.

It would appear
that every proprietor and editr

of every publication
that has paid for intrusive

and exploitative photographs
of her,

encouraging greedy
and ruthless individuals

to risk everything in pursuit
of Diana's image,

has blood on his hands today.

Princess Di is dead,

and who should we see
about that?

The driver of the car,
the paparazzi, or the magazines

and papers
who purchase these pictures

and make bounty hunters
out of photographers?

Then it got very personal.

A-listers, like George Clooney
for example,

and others pointing fingers
and saying,

"Steve Coz, you have blood
on your hands.

You're a murderer.
You killed the Princess."

And as for you, Mr. Coz,
and your colleagues,

the Princess of Wales is dead,
and you have gone on television,

and you have washed your hands,
and you have placed blame,

and you
have deflected responsibility,

and yet I wonder
how you sleep at night.

You should be ashamed.
Thank you.

Mr. Clooney,
will there be questions?

I'm not going to, thank you.

To blame one institution,
i.e. the National Enquirer,

for the paparazzis
on the planet is ridiculous.

The paparazzi started
and existed

before the National Enquirer
existed.

The thirst...

for private knowledge
about the celebrities

is what fuels the paparazzi.

Oh, my God.

We were, you know,

award-winning journalism
for four years,

and now suddenly we were blamed
for Princess Di's death,

and I personally was blamed.

The National Enquirer
and their ilk believe

they have a right
to intrude on your privacy,

and to make
your private life public.

Does it 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 constantly
with the danger of libel suits.

Several times a day,
Executive Editor, Steve Coz

consults
with the paper's lawyer,

a man by the name
of David Kendall,

who also represents the
President of the United States.

Yeah!

We break stories.
We go after news-makers.

We don't care if they're
politicians or celebrities.

We cover newsmakers
that we think Americans

want to read about.

When are the reports

about an official's
personal life valid,

and what is the impact

on the public?

What did I say to you guys?

We're not coming back.
Move back.

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 Jackson's Love Child."

We didn't go after them.
We didn't promote them.

We didn't stand up for them.

We didn't say,
"Oh, vote for this guy,"

or, "He's a good guy,"
or, "He's a bad guy."

They went out,
and they did things

like cheat on their wife

and have affairs
with interns or whatever.

And that's something
that we reacted to,

'cause that's something
people wanted to read.

We didn't say, "Oh, he's
a Democrat. He's a Republican.

We're not gonna get this one.
We'll leave him alone."

Believe me, if we
had had George Bush doing blow,

we would've done it.

That changed
when management changed.

That changed
when David Pecker took over.

Two of
the nation's liveliest tabloid,

the National Enquirer
and the Star,

are being taken
over by new owners

who want to extend
the well-known titles

beyond the supermarket.

The first time
I encountered David Pecker

was when he arose to the head
of a French media company

called Hachette Filipacchi.

At that time, they had Car
and Driver and Woman's Day.

His most famous magazine
was when he backed JFK Jr.

in George magazine.

George is a magazine
that understands

that culture is more powerful
than politics.

The traditional lines
between Democrats

and Republicans
are disappearing.

The magazine they'll turn to

for a fresh,
non-partisan perspective

will be George.

David Pecker insisted
that he had to have pictures

of himself in with JFK Jr.

He definitely knew he
was latching onto something

bigger than himself then.

Pecker's a man who want
to drive around in limousines,

wants to belong
to the best clubs,

and wants to be known
as a celebrity himself.

David Pecker
was not a journalist.

He was brought into media
because of his financial acumen.

People would call him
a bean counter,

for want of a better word,
a financial guy.

In the cultured, highbrow world
of media moguls...

he was seen
as more of a scrappy,

"born in the Bronx" kind of guy.

I...
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 he's 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 forefrot
of mass media in America.

That was his goal, and he stated
it right out of the gate.

He wants to go
to an advertising-driven vehice

and polish up the tabloids,
make them slicker,

make them more New York.

He wanted to sort of drag
this tabloid empire upscale.

Well, people aren't 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 assets in the Enquirer

were the people
who worked 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,

flyby America,
supermarket America.

Maybe not as influential
as it was 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 in Boca Raton, Florida.

It houses the company,
American Media Incorporated,

which publishes
tabloid newspapers,

including the National Enquirer

The building was sealed off

so that the FBI and the CDC

can search the facility,
looking at packages

and mail that may have been
delivered to the building.

You know, the whole worl
was in trauma over 9/11.

And to have a trauma hit like
that 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.

There was a huge national fear

that anthrax was gonna spread
across the country,

and there's a particular fear

that you could contract anthrax

through employees
of the National Enquirer.

Within a week,
we ran a page-one story,

"Bio-Terrorism Attack,"
that this had occurred to us.

Why would
they attack American Media?

Why would they attack...
attack the National Enquirer?

Well, it's quite simple.
It's a piece of Americana.

It's a populist,
patriotic American magazine,

and that's what I believe
is why we were attacked.

Do you fear, though,
a tremendous loss of business?

Yes, Larry, I... I... 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 this a David Pecker thought?

This is a David Pecker thought.

I feel that we had
a bioterrorism attack here.

Management decided that we need
to be more "patriotic."

That was the word was used.

And to support the war effort
that was coming,

you know, we needed to show
that we were strong.

People love
to have patriotic stories

on the front,

and I think that they had
found another nerve

that they were hitting
on the readership

by doing
these post 9/11 stories.

We must have put
out probably five

special commemorative editions

that were slicker
and glossier...

'cause remember, at our bones,
we're patriotic.

Our readers believed
in the U.S. government,

just like they believed
in America.

What a greeting. Wow.

Thank you.

From a bodybuilding career,

I have gotten
a large female following.

You know, you have situations
where women absolutely, like,

take their clothes
off in front of you.

Like, this woman just took
off her clothes

and stood there naked,
and she says, "Take me."

- Oh. Oh.
- Yeah, baby.

I mean, sometimes, uh,

it takes a little bit
of respect away

that one has for women.

Oh, hey. I gotta do that.

I first met
Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987.

I was part of the team
that covered his marriage

to Maria Shriver.

Arnold wasn't
the least bit self-conscious

about interacting
with the press.

He brought Maria
out of the church on the steps

and posed for photographs.
He was eating up the press,

and we had never encountered
a celebrity like that.

So there was always a lot
of good will toward Arnold.

Let's stretch again. Come on.

All right.
And let's do some jumping.

Come on, now,
and twisting back and forth.

Oh, I see some sexy bodies
out there twisting.

Wow!

But the downside was
Arnold was a womanizer.

We've had stories,
you know, on the sets of movies

where he harassed women all
the time.

He can't even deny it
at this point.

I mean, he didn't drug people
like Bill Cosby did,

to my knowledge, but he...
he was out there constantly,

you know,
cheating on his family.

We would catch him
from time to time,

and that didn't deter him

until he developed
political aspirations.

On the big screen,
he's currently trying

to save the human race.

In real life,
he's happy to limit himself

to the 36 million people
of California.

I'm going to run for governor

of the state of California.

So, just as the campaign
was gearing up,

the reality was,

what are we gonna do with
all these stories about affairs

and his cheating on Maria?

And David Pecker corralled all
the bad stories

and assured him
that during the campaign,

he had nothing to worry about.

At the time, the American Media

was making
very highly leveraged deals

for things like
the Joe Weider publications...

Muscle & 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 publications.

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'd 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... 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 Goyette.

Approximately two years
after the story

was released
in the National Enquirer,

we got a call
from American Media,

and they were interested
in the rights to my...

life story, specifically,
my story with Arnold.

And I met Jerry George.
It was a summer afternoon.

We sat down at the table,

and he pulled out
a yellow envelope...

legal envelope

with a three-page contract
in it.

We proposed to her

that if she sold us the rights
to her story...

um, we, ultimately,
would develop them

in terms of a book
and possibly a television movie.

And he was, like...

kind of buttering me up.
Like, "This is gonna be great.

We're gonna do
a book-signing tour.

You'll go all over the country."

"Trust us.

Sign the rights
to your story over.

We'll 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 didn't want to publish
my story.

They didn't even wanna see
the story. They didn't care.

- That was not their intent.
- And I was part of it.

Um, 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 work hard
and if you play by the rules,

this country
is truly open to you.

You can achieve anything.

The public didn't think

that the National Enquirer
had a point of view.

They thought the Enquirer's
point of view was,

"Cover everybody.
Hold truth to power."

But I don't 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.

Cohen says he worked
with Pecker to bury it...

Operating at the request
of the candidate

for the principal 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... and, look, I'll defer
to the election-law experts.

They say
that this is worth scrutinizing.

Normally speaking,
news organizations

don't get information
in order to bury it.

That's what's different here.

You're talking about
silencing women...

and being involved
in silencing women

with hush payments.
That is a whole...

different order of magnitude

that I had never heard
of before.

I don't 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 work
at the National Enquirer,

and they are good,
solid reporters.

It's just that when they veer
into other areas

like trying to overtly help
a candidate win the presidency,

that is something different.

When you're talking
about the Enquirer

and you're 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, we're 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 travelers.

Pecker liked
Donald Trump's 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.

It's obviously been a very
rough-and-tumble week, uh,

between you and Donald Trump.
A salacious story about you

was published
in the National Enquirer.

Unsubstantiated
stories about Ted Cruz,

including allegations
of marital infidelity,

and the baseless claim
that Cruz's father worked

with Lee Harvey Oswald
in the Kennedy assassination.

There was a picture
on the 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 material that they put out...

was suddenly
influencing opinions.

And, you know,
the National Enquirer

in its history
has never endorsed

a presidential candidate
until Donald Trump?

The first time I realized
that the National Enquirer

had become partisan
was years after I left,

when I walked
into my local supermarket,

and I saw the cover,

and I had to do a...
a second look.

It was a huge story,

that said how Donald Trump

is gonna 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... is ludicrous.

And at the same time,

every time you saw
Hillary Clinton on the cover,

she was either all alone,

on her way
to the hospital, dying.

And that's when I went, "Uh-oh.
Something's 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 today's world?

There's 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...

a hundred million people a week,
probably more.

It's right there in your face.

It's like buying
a banner ad on a highway,

except the highway happens
to be the conveyor belt.

So if you have
a political message...

it's a great place to put it.

I think the thing
that people don't realize

is just how creepy...

the operations are.

I don't 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.

We'll make it a glossy,

and we'll put the prince
on the cover.

And it will be
a one-time-only deal,

and we'll rack it
at Walmart for...

13 dollars.

And we'll make Saudi Arabia
look like paradise.

Won't 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 theory and the speculation
was everywhere

that there was
ulterior motives on this,

that it was not a straight-up,

"Hey, here's a pop figure
that will sell

like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jole
or the Kardashians,"

but they were giving him
that treatment.

I don't think it resonated

with Middle America,
though, so...

why were they doing it?

- What is going on here?
- I don't know.

I mean, the two leading theories
seem to be that AMI is either

doing the Saudis' dirty work,

President Trump's
dirty work,

or a combination
of the two.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
accusing the National Enquirer

of blackmail and extortion.

It is a shocking,
a deeply personal post,

just published online.

AMI attempted
to extort and blackmail Bezos

by threatening to release
compromising photos and texts

between the billionaire
and his alleged mistress.

Claims of extortion,

blackmail coming
from the world's richest man.

This publication by
the National Enquirer

might have been
politically motivated.

Jeff Bezos owns
The Washington Post,

which the president
regularly pillories

- for its coverage.
- "We have ten photos of you,

- Jeff Bezos, sexual in nature"
- Carlson: In some ways,

all publicity is good publicity.

Look at all those cameras.

There's also a really
bad stench to this thing.

Trump is trying
to take out Bezos Bear

with a far-reaching
secret conspiracy.

They messed with the wrong guy.

And they have found that out.

This story is the stuff
that tabloid dreams are made of.

What the hell happened?
The Enquirer got overtaken by...

mainstream media,
who out-enquired

the Enquirer in the end,
and I think that's where we are.

The Enquirer's
been out-enquired.

A lot of people
used to understand

the line between...

some of the things
the National Enquirer does

and what the
mainstream press does,

and I think that people's
understanding

of that has shrunk.
I think it has eroded,

and I think that that has
all contributed to a bad cycle.

It's almost impossible

in our culture today
to have a fact-based debate.

We cannot agree on the facts.

That is a terrible place to be.

Sometimes we are guilty

of enjoying things
we shouldn't enjoy...

of talking about things
we shouldn't be talking about,

of claiming something as a fact
when it's not a fact.

So in that sense, we are really

children
of the National Enquirer.

A South Florida
holiday tradition

is under way tonight in Lantana
at the headquarters

of the National Enquirer
tabloid.

NewsCenter 7's Don Dare is live
in front of what they call

the world's largest
Christmas tree.

Don, you really think
it's the world's largest?

I believe it is, Sally.
The tree is 126 feet high.

That's 12 stories...

In many ways...

I want to defend
this kind of journalism

because it... it has a place.
In... in other ways...

...there's
a very shameful aspect

to it, as well.
There was distortion...

and there was the degrading
of the...

of the basic
journalistic spirit.

I'm not happy about what I did,

but I'm not
that unhappy, either.

I look at this now,
and I'm thinking, "Man, oh, man.

How did we get...

...a tabloid subject

who's now President
of the United States?

And do I have any shame in this
or potential guilt of my own?"

You know,
this is the world of tabloid.

Who the hell knows?
You're not planning strategy.

You're not planning
a world game.

Hell, you're just trying
to get a page one

that will sell in the next week.

So...

what can I say?

I was a journalist.