Grado de dificultad: 3 (Por el idioma)
Columnista: Roberto
A garbage can
David Pecker is the subject of an entry in Wikipedia. It is a short one, however very instructive (and updated recently). As a close friend of him use to say: “he is a very fine man”.
He is chairman of the infamous National Inquirer (a reputation acquired long before the well know “catch and kill” tactic on Karen Mc Dougal – among other stunts).
For American people, the name of the tabloid is enough description; for the others, a short explanation is necessary.
The National Inquirer is a “tabloid”, which means that its content is all about gossip.
The financial status of this garbage can (sorry, I couldn’t find any closer description to it) is however not very good. You could think this is refreshing and good news.
It´s not, or at least not until it is completely dead. Wounded animals are often more dangerous.
A close friend of Individual 1
Maybe his close relationship with “someone” made David Pecker believe he was untouchable, or, more probably, because he is desperate and owing big to “you-know-who”, he recently launched an attack against a “sort-of” wealthy man: Jeff Bezos.
For people who don’t know who this last man is, he “sort-of” owns a regular company named Amazon, and is the main shareholder of a small regional newspaper called “The Washington Post”, among other small businesses (#the_art_of_the deal).
Almost no one. Some say that he is the richest man of the world, other say that it is Bill Gates, a discussion we won’t get in.
The notice that this man is getting divorced is a sad story, that he may deserve somehow. It becomes more interesting when the origin of the crisis is a gossip information published in the National Inquirer.
This is not casual at all, knowing that The Washington Post is one of the main information media that are nicknamed “fake news” by POTUS (without any demonstration of it).
Jeff Bezos didn’t have to say it, everyone suspected the same thing: that this is a politically targeted attack.
Brilliant tactics…
What were they thinking at the National Inquirer? Maybe they weren’t even thinking, rather they were remote controlled.
There is a gambling term commonly used these days: “to double down”. There is a problem with this gambling tactic, which is that to “double down”, you have got to put your bet on the table… And the odds are not good (supposing you can put that amount on that table).
The same people that use this tactic (in that very case), also use a “scare” one against opponents. It works fine when the opponent is a beautiful (but not very bright) actress/model, but it may not be the best idea when the opponent is “one of the” most powerful moguls of the planet (if not “the”).
Jeff Bezos’ tactic is far straighter: since he generally doesn’t speak, unlike others, the first step is simply to talk:
https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146e3922310f
Note: obviously, when the counterpart is clumsy enough to gives him the weapon, it makes the move easier.
To be fair, it looks like the counterpart is already in bad shape, explaining why they didn’t even think of covering their tracks:
Why talking about that in TMN
2020 is tomorrow
It looks like no one even bothered to warn the WH against a very risky move, and, on the contrary, they are preparing to watch the show on a comfortable sofa with a huge bucket of popcorn.
We hope that Mr David Pecker knows that Jeff Bezos will still be there after 2020. At the speed things are evolving, this seems a very distant date…
Catch and kill
The “catch and kill” technical stunt is totally immoral but legal. This could become a strong concern with the new European Directive on Copyright, which is in its final approval phase.
Thanks to this directive, a garbage tabloid (oops, I did it again, #pleonasm) like the National Inquirer would be granted the right to perform it on a wider scale. For any journalist or blogger, this is a very nasty notice.
Leave A Comment