The National Enquirer has skated on the fringes of legality and respectability for a long time, but it is continuing on a downward trajectory into journalistic worthlessness.
The Enquirer used to brag that it had never been successfully sued for libel, but then Carol Burnett took extreme umbrage at a false story depicting her as an alcoholic, and sued and won, after giving heartbreaking testimony about how her parents had been alcoholics and for that reason she didn't drink herself.
And then we have the more recent stories about how the Enquirer assisted the Trump campaign and election by paying hush money to his mistresses.
But the Enquirer has met its match in Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Instead of lying down and capitulating to the Enquirer's blackmail demands, Bezos has pushed back, blogging in detail about the Enquirer's attempts to blackmail him into calling off an investigation into how the Enquirer obtained private emails and pictures of himself and his mistress. Bezos is 100% within his rights to have this matter investigated, as this information could not have been obtained by the Enquirer except through a blatant invasion of his privacy.
Bezos published letters sent to his lawyer in which the Enquirer insists that the pictures it has published are a legitimate matter of public concern, which is debatable at best. Bezos is not running for any office, and there is no basis for a claim that his private life is a legitimate subject of intrusion. The Enquirer insists that it obtained the information in a normal news-gathering way, which is laughable since it could only have been obtained through illegal electronic surveillance.
We need more people like Jeff Bezos, people who are willing to stand up for what is right and decent. Kudos to him, and boos and jeers to the mud-slinging Enquirer.
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