Tiger Woods Killed National Enquirer Affair Story In 2007 In Exchange For Men's Fitness Cover
Taylor
For Men's Fitness Cover
First Posted: 12-18-09 09:58 AM | Updated: 12-18-09 10:50 AM
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The Wall Street Journal Friday has new details on the deal struck by
Tiger Woods' representatives and American Media to kill a National
Enquirer story on his infidelity by giving an extensive cover
interview to sister-publication Men's Fitness.
The New York Post's Keith Kelly reported earlier this month that the
National Enquirer killed a story on a Woods affair in 2007 in exchange
for a Men's Fitness feature on the golfer (who, incidentally, had a
deal with Conde Nast's Golf Digest magazine).
Kelly spoke to former Men's Fitness editor-in-chief Neal Boulton, who
said, "[American Media CEO] David Pecker knew about Tiger Woods'
infidelity a long time ago...He traded silence for a Men's Fitness
cover." Boulton claims to have left the company shortly thereafter in
disgust.
And while American Media has denied the quid-pro-quo arrangement, the
Wall Street Journal's Reed Albergotti, Vanessa O'Connell and Russell
Adams report further details that corroborate Kelly's story:
Mr. Woods had cut an unusual deal with American Media Inc., the owner
of both Men's Fitness magazine and the National Enquirer tabloid
newspaper. Mr. Woods agreed to the cover shot and photo spread in
Men's Fitness, whose circulation of about 700,000 per issue is less
than half of Golf Digest's nearly 1.7 million, in return for the
National Enquirer squelching a story and photographs purportedly
showing Mr. Woods in a liaison with a woman who wasn't his wife,
according to people directly involved in the arrangement.
What's more, the WSJ reports, the National Enquirer essentially
tricked Woods' camp, as their evidence of his affair was probably not
even strong enough to run in the magazine!
The Enquirer had photographs of Woods and a Florida waitress named
Mindy Lawton in a car together in a church parking lot in "late winter
or early spring of 2007," the WSJ reports. The paper cites an
individual who saw the pictures in reporting that "the photos were so
poorly lit that it was nearly impossible to tell what the couple was
doing in the parking lot" and that "it was unlikely the story could
have been published without more evidence."
Still, when the Enquirer approached Woods' reps about the photos, the
reps almost immediately "made an offer," the WSJ reports:
If the Enquirer dropped the story, Mr. Woods would sit for an
elaborate interview for sister publication Men's Fitness, according to
people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.
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