Farrow reported that the company regularly engaged in such “catch and kill” agreements, and that AMI did not publish any stories critical of Trump without Pecker’s permission. In the piece, Farrow alleged that AMI paid Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who claimed she had an affair with Trump, a six-figure sum for exclusive rights to her story, offering her the opportunity to pen almost one hundred columns for the company and potentially collaborate on a skincare line, neither of which came to fruition. Howard’s name surfaced again in Farrow’s 2018 New Yorker reporting about David Pecker, the CEO of AMI and a longtime friend of Donald Trump. Weinstein’s repeated efforts to have AMI titles publish favorable stories about him or negative articles about his accusers.” Weinstein,” and said that he “resisted Mr. Howard denied that he had violated journalistic protocol by providing “‘off the record information to Mr. In a statement to the New Yorker, Howard said that he had asked the reporter to collect information on Weinstein as part of the due diligence process, as AMI had a (now-defunct) production agreement with Weinstein at the time. eventually she laid into Rose pretty hard,” Howard said in a 2016 email to Weinstein about the interview. In one 2016 email, Howard informed Weinstein about an interview one of his reporters did with the ex-wife of director Robert Rodriguez, who briefly dated McGowan after their divorce, which supposedly contained information that could discredit McGowan. In 2017, Farrow reported in the New Yorker that Howard had sent a reporter to discredit sexual assault allegations made by the actress Rose McGowan against Harvey Weinstein, the now-disgraced Hollywood mogul. Much of Farrow’s reporting on powerful men’s attempts to silence, discredit, and intimidate survivors of sexual assault has been focused on AMI, particularly its alleged efforts to “catch and kill” stories containing incriminating information about the company’s allies. So who, exactly, is Howard, and why is he so worried about Farrow’s book? Howard is the vice president and chief content officer at American Media Inc., the company that owns US Weekly, In Touch, and a number of other tabloids, including the National Enquirer.