{"id":2190270,"date":"2025-12-07T18:01:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T18:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2190270"},"modified":"2025-12-07T18:01:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T18:01:23","slug":"national-enquirer-sale-likely-means-a-refocus-on-celebrity-gossip-04-22-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/national-enquirer-sale-likely-means-a-refocus-on-celebrity-gossip-04-22-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;National Enquirer&#8217; Sale Likely Means A Refocus On Celebrity Gossip 04\/22\/2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"article_body_main\" data-title=\"News Snooze: U.S. Consumers Not As Interested In Updates As In 2016 12\/05\/2025\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.mediapost.com\/publications\/article\/411167\/news-snooze-us-consumers-not-as-interested-in-u.html\" data-start=\"None\" data-index=\"0\"><\/p>\n<p>American Media<br \/>\nInc.\u2019s sale of the <em>National Enquirer<\/em>for $100 million to James Cohen, CEO of Hudson News, should be positive for the tabloid. Instead of writing about President Trump\u2019s political<br \/>\nenemies and praising allies like Saudi Arabia, the publication can get back to the business of covering celebrity gossip.  <\/p>\n<p>While the <em>Enquirer<\/em> broke the story about Amazon CEO Jeff<br \/>\nBezos\u2019s love life, the ensuing publicity battle with the world\u2019s richest man wasn\u2019t worth the effort. Bezos may be wealthy, but he\u2019s also boring, compared with<br \/>\nHollywood\u2019s sex symbols who typically clutter the <em>Enquirer<\/em>\u2019s pages.<\/p>\n<p>The tabloid made Bezos, whose company has been blamed for destroying retail jobs and hollowing out<br \/>\nformerly vibrant shopping districts like Manhattan, look more sympathetic than ever. He\u2019s just a nerdy billionaire who wants to be left alone to seek taxpayer-subsidized helipads and other<br \/>\npork-barrel goodies from politicians.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ads_inline_640\"><!-- ~advertisement~ big_unit --><\/p>\n<p>advertisement<\/p>\n<p><!-- Website big_unit Ad --><\/p>\n<p>advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>An investigation into <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/02\/07\/technology\/jeff-bezos-sanchez-enquirer.html\">Bezos\u2019 claims of extortion<\/a> is<br \/>\nongoing and will continue to haunt AMI. Federal prosecutors in New York had planned to meet with Bezos this month about his claims that the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/jeff-bezos-to-meet-with-feds-over-claims-of-blackmail-from-national-enquirer\/\"><em>Enquirer<\/em> tried to blackmail<\/a> him with help from Saudi Arabia, CBS reported<br \/>\nlast week.<\/p>\n<p>Criminal complaints against AMI&#8217;s executives are still a possibility.<\/p>\n<p>Anthony Melchiorre, a hedge-fund manager whose firm controls AMI, wanted to unload the<br \/>\n<em>Enquirer<\/em> after becoming <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/ad84cc84-620c-11e9-a27a-fdd51850994c\">disillusioned with its reporting tactics<\/a> and the ensuing legal and political pressures,<br \/>\npeople familiar with the sale told the <em>Financial Times.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Cohen, one of the biggest magazine distributors in the world, should make a nice fit for the <em>Enquirer<\/em>. The tabloid<br \/>\ndepends heavily on newsstand sales from stores like Hudson News and discount chains, such as Walmart.<\/p>\n<p>The explosion in online gossip report has impacted the <em>Enquirer<\/em>\u2019s<br \/>\ncirculation \u2014 from 6 million in the 1970s\u00a0to less than 500,000 today, as reported by the Alliance for Audited Media.<\/p>\n<p>While the <em>Enquirer<\/em> has stirred ample controversy over<br \/>\nthe years, new ownership may mean the tabloid will shy away from politically motivated \u201ccatch-and-kill\u201d reporting. Cohen can clean house and hire new editors.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, AMI<br \/>\nreached a nonprosecution agreement with the Department of Justice to avoid getting busted for making a hush payment to Karen McDougal, a former <em>Playboy<\/em> model, to avoid damaging Trump\u2019s<br \/>\npresidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The sale also means that AMI will cut its debt and focus on other publications, like <em>US Weekly<\/em> and <em>In Touch.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n        !function (f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\n            if (f.fbq)return;\n            n = f.fbq = function () {\n                n.callMethod ?\n                    n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments)\n            };\n            if (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\n            n.push = n;\n            n.loaded = !0;\n            n.version = '2.0';\n            n.queue = [];\n            t = b.createElement(e);\n            t.async = !0;\n            t.src = v;\n            s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n            s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s)\n        }(window, document, 'script',\n            'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n        fbq('init', '1353226008029768');\n        fbq('track', 'PageView');\n    <\/script><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.mediapost.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Media Inc.\u2019s sale of the National Enquirerfor $100 million to James Cohen, CEO of Hudson News, should be positive for the tabloid. Instead of writing about President Trump\u2019s political enemies and praising allies like Saudi Arabia, the publication can get back to the business of covering celebrity gossip. While the Enquirer broke the story [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2190271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[422764,422765,422766],"class_list":["post-2190270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-american-media-inc-s-sale-of-the-national-enquirer-for-100-million-to-james-cohen","tag-ceo-of-hudson-news","tag-should-be-positive-for-the-tabloid-04-22-2019"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/National-Enquirer-Sale-Likely-Means-A-Refocus-On-Celebrity-Gossip.JPEG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2190270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2190272,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190270\/revisions\/2190272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2190271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}