Sleazy Journalism Can Serve the Public Good
Long before Bezos’s battle with the National Enquirer, a fight involving a scabrous newspaper led to a Supreme Court decision expanding freedom of the press.
Don’t believe everything you read.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
There are plenty of reasons to sympathize with Jeff Bezos in his battle with the National Enquirer. If true, the accusations of blackmail brought by the billionaire founder of Amazon would be just the latest outrage from the tabloid, which has made a specialty of scabrous reporting and ethically questionable tactics and techniques.
But that doesn’t mean we should always applaud the campaigns of powerful moguls to silence sleazy newspapers. History shows that even the most odious publications and the worst practices of scandal sheets can inadvertently play an important role in maintaining the freedom of the press. There’s no better illustration than the sordid story of the Saturday Press.