Walmart's tabloid romance will survive calls to remove Enquirer
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A decade ago, the company that distributed magazines to Walmart Inc. and other big retailers tried to impose a surcharge of 7 cents a copy. Publishers such as Time Inc. and American Media Inc. fought back by halting shipments, resulting in a short period where checkout-counter racks were devoid of titles like AMI’s National Enquirer.
Walmart received more customer complaints about the missing tabloid than just about any other out-of-stock item in its history.
The incident illustrates the close ties between the world’s largest retailer and the Enquirer, whose publisher David Pecker is locked in a public spat with Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos. The clash indirectly pits Walmart and Amazon against each other, since Walmart represents 23 percent of the Enquirer’s sales, according to a 2017 New Yorker article. Bezos says he was blackmailed by Pecker, a close friend of President Donald Trump, himself a frequent Bezos critic.
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