David Pecker testimony at Trump trial reveals the seedy underbelly of his tabloid journalism

WASHINGTON — Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial this week revealed the underhanded tactics his publication used to defend the former president, flagrantly violating not only mainstream journalism ethics rules, but even the more lurid standards typical of tabloids like his.

“I knew the National Enquirer was slimy, but I didn’t know they were this slimy,” said Kelly McBride, the senior vice president and chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the nonprofit Poynter Institute. “It is so far outside the practice of journalism that it’s hard for me to even imagine that this was happening.”

In testimony this week during Trump’s trial in New York City, the former CEO of the National Enquirer’s former parent company explained in stunning detail how he agreed to act as “eyes and ears” for Trump’s campaign, purchasing the rights to stories in order to suppress them, and even outright fabricating negative stories about Trump’s opponents.

“I wanted to protect my company, I wanted to protect myself, and I also wanted to protect Donald Trump,” Pecker said about why he released a false public statement about his publication’s “catch and kill” agreement to purchase and bury Karen McDougal’s story about her alleged monthslong affair with Trump.

Paying for stories, fabricating stories and striking secret deals to support political campaigns are all flagrant violations of basic journalism tenets, codified in many news outlets’ internal ethics policies and the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics.

Some of the Enquirer’s tactics were already known. But they mainly came through reporting from anonymous sources — including from one former National