NY Post "Page Six" Gossip Columnists in Extortion Scheme--Murdoch Mum [View All]

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STUNNING. The NY Post (owned by Rupert Murdoch) has a gossip columnist for their gossip page, Page Six, who was extorting money from wealthy people. How did they do it? They'd go to these people and demand huge sums of money in return for NOT running stories. Who were their targets? Well, the target mentioned in this story is a California billionaire and "Democratic fund raiser." What a scandal. This will develop into something huge, I predict.


Update: 02:00 PM EDT

In Page Six Inquiry, Gossip Swirls Around Gossips

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/08/business/media/08post.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=2b3608dee270d6ff&hp=&ex=1144468800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1144526503-29f7/bHAc8Hk4107PYk9IQ&pagewanted=print
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, ALLISON HOPE WEINER and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: April 8, 2006

April 8, 2006
In Page Six Inquiry, Gossip Swirls Around Gossips
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, ALLISON HOPE WEINER and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

The New York Post is cooperating with a federal investigation into whether a longtime contributor for the Page Six gossip column — the avidly read daily log of wrongdoing, double-dealing and sexual indiscretions by celebrities both minor and major — tried to extort money from a California billionaire, according to a spokesman for the newspaper.

Several people involved in the investigation said the reporter, Jared Paul Stern, had been captured on a video recording demanding a $100,000 payment and a monthly stipend of $10,000 from Ronald W. Burkle in return for keeping negative information about him out of the paper. Mr. Stern was suspended Thursday pending the outcome of the investigation, and could be dismissed, according to Howard Rubenstein, the spokesman.

But while the accusations against Mr. Stern are serious, it is the specter — raised by at least three people who say they know what is on the tapes — that Mr. Stern implicated several celebrities and New York power figures in an undisclosed, symbiotic relationship with Page Six that prompted an extraordinary day of full-throated and at times gleeful gossip among those who love, hate and avidly read the column.

<snip>

The scandal that is rattling Page Six began about a year ago, when items about Mr. Burkle, a supermarket magnate and Democratic fund-raiser, began appearing in the column more often.

More analysis on this in a few minutes on GDP