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Now that former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial has started in earnest, it’s thrown a spotlight onto a grimy corner of the media business: pay-to-play tabloid journalism, where editors pluck the juiciest stories from a marketplace of potential scandals.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had the king of the tabloids in his pocket — the National Enquirer, headed at the time by American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker.
In court this week, reporters in the courtroom heard Pecker testify under oath that he actively sought to be Trump’s “eyes and ears.” The National Enquirer and AMI were essential to the schemes to “catch” (buy the rights to) and “kill” (never publish) negative Trump stories, a pact that became the foundation of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case.
Trump is accused of falsifying documents related to a payment he made to Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had an …