Dylan Howard
Dylan Howard is an Australian entertainment journalist who was ousted as the Vice President and Chief Content Officer at American Media on March 31, 2020. He oversaw Us Weekly, OK!, Star, In Touch, Life & Style, Closer, The National Examiner, RadarOnline.com, and The National Enquirer and its U.K. edition, Globe. He is a television producer and documentarian who, in partnership with Endeavor has developed and created shows for Investigation Discovery, TLC, REELZ, and other networks.
Howard was named the 2011 Entertainment Journalist of the Year at the National Entertainment Journalism Awards. He is a five-time NEJA winner, 14-time finalist and has previously won L.A. Press Club awards for online news reporting—Mel Gibson audio tapes—and investigative journalism, for exposing a secret Hollywood poker ring involving A-List actors Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. He has been nominated 11 times for various L.A. Press Club awards.
In February 2019, Jeff Bezos claimed that Howard, in his role as an editor at American Media, took part in an effort to blackmail him. Howard was a party to a September 2018 non-prosecution agreement with Southern District of New York federal prosecutors.
Early career
Howard grew up in Geelong, Victoria. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Deakin University in Australia.In January 2009, he moved to United States after a stint as a television journalist. During that time, he worked for the Seven Network based in Melbourne, Australia.
Howard's 2007 report on the impending sacking of an Australian football coach was highly commended for a prestigious Quill Award - for excellence in Victorian journalism, in the Best TV News Report category.
He also worked for Reuters Television in New York, The Geelong Advertiser and Southern Cross Television in Tasmania; the latter both Australian media outlets.
He began his career at The Geelong Advertiser, the six-day-a-week paper for the city of Geelong. He wrote an opinion page for the Saturday edition, Sport Section, titled "Howard's Way" until he moved to the United States.
While at Southern Cross, he obtained interviews with former Governor Richard Butler and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and his partner Mary Donaldson.
Howard also has been published in the News of the World, Hello, Woman's Day, New Idea, Grazia, OK! Magazine, Men's Style, Alpha, Ralph Magazine, Loaded, M Magazine Dubai, In Touch, and The Sunday Mail's Celebs on Sunday.
Channel 7
Howard joined Channel 7 in 2005 as a sports reporter. His primary reporting focus was AFL, but during the summer months he would present the sports report on the 6 o'clock Channel 7 Melbourne news. Howard didn't have his contract renewed by Channel 7 in January 2009.Controversy
Drugs in Sport
- Michael Braun. Jason Akermanis wrote an article for Melbourne's NewsCorp paper the Herald Sun, stating that he 'felt' that a player that was his direct opponent in a game earlier in one season seemed able to run faster and had better recovery against him in another game later in that season. The implication was that Akermanis felt that this player was using a form of performance-enhancing drugs. Jason didn't name the player in his article. Howard's role in this issue became evident just days after this article was published. Howard, who to date has yet to name his source, revealed that the player who Jason was referring to was Michael Braun a player for the West Coast Eagles. No other evidence has ever surfaced to support the claims made by Akermanis, who later apologised to Braun.
- Medical records. The medical records of players from an AFL club were claimed to have been found in the gutter outside a clinic by a woman. After allegedly attempting to return the documents to the clinic and finding that the gates were locked tried to ring all the media outlets in Melbourne to offer the documents, as a "public service". Her asking price was A$3,000. Channel 7 decided to purchase the documents. At or around 4:15 Friday 24 August 2007, Channel 7 started promoting on-air that it had a "huge story" related to AFL and drugs and would reveal this in its nightly news at 6pm AEST. Howard then went to air and named the club that these two players played for. A court injunction was sought to suppress the name and club mentioned in the records and was granted by Justice Kim Hargrave of the Supreme Court of Victoria. Later on 24 August, during half time on Channel 7's Friday Night Football, Howard participated in an on-air interview, conducted by Tim Watson where he claimed that after contacting the AFL, it had given Howard "approval" to go to air with the story. This interview went live, via Fox Sports to New South Wales and Queensland and on the CCTV at the Telstra Dome, but was not in the program that aired on the Seven Network during the delayed coverage into Victoria, South Australia or Western Australia after Howard admitted he inadvertently misspoke. Howard, on Tuesday 28 August 2007, went on 3AW during the Sport's Today program and explained to Caroline Wilson that his comments on Friday night had been misinterpreted and that he had "apologised to those who misunderstood that at the time". The AFL CEO, Andrew Demetriou, then responded to Howard's interview on 3AW, saying that "It's mischievous, and we have asked him to apologise, given that it went to air in two states, and all Dylan Howard had to do was apologise. We will not be misrepresented to people about the AFL supporting a story that we've already said publicly we find obscene, abhorrent, the route of gutter journalism".
Harvey Weinstein allegations
On March 7, 2018, Howard successfully sued Nine Network's 60 Minutes after they unlawfully trespassed on private property and attempted to question him about the Weinstein story in the lobby of his New York office.
In 2017, the Associate Press reported on an inquiry conducted by American Media in 2012 about a sexual harassment allegation toward Howard, but concluded there was no serious wrongdoing. American Media has supported Howard through the accusations, calling the accusations "baseless."
Blackmail claims by Jeff Bezos
On February 7, 2019, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com and owner of the Washington Post, accused Howard and others at AMI of attempting to blackmail him by threatening to release private photos of Mr Bezos. Bezos published an email sent by Howard to Bezos' attorney in which he described various lurid private photographs in AMI's possession including a "below the belt selfie - otherwise colloquially known as a d*ck pic." Bezos also disclosed Howard's email address. AMI attorney Jon Fine followed the email with demands that Bezos cease an ongoing investigation of AMI's previous release of Bezos' private text messages.Other
Howard has been involved in a number of controversial stories in his career at Channel 7: He was on assignment in Ireland when it emerged star footballer Brendan Fevola had been in a fight with that pub's bartender while he was a member of the All Australian team visiting Ireland for the International Rules Series Seven News purchased the video tape from a pub in Galway, Ireland.The New York Times reported on August 23, 2018 that Howard was cooperating with federal investigators examining hush payments made by Michael Cohen to two women on behalf of President Donald Trump. Vanity Fair reported that Howard had received witness immunity in exchange for his testimony. Ronan Farrow claims in his book that American Media, Inc. and the National Enquirer shredded sensitive Trump-related documents held in a top-secret safe on orders from then-Editor-in-Chief Howard the same day a reporter from the Wall Street Journal asked for a comment for a story about how AMI paid $150,000 to Karen McDougal to keep her story about having an affair with Trump quiet before the election.
Entertainment Journalism
Howard left Reuters in May 2010 after being approached to head RadarOnline.com. During his tenure guiding RadarOnline.com, the celebrity news site attained a new level of visibility in the world’s media, after Howard broke the Gibson scandal after covertly obtaining the expletive laden audiotapes.In 2011, Howard was named Entertainment Journalist of the Year at the National Entertainment Journalism Awards, where the judges labeled him the "go-to guy for authoritative showbiz news and analysis on cable and over-the air television." In awarding him the top national honor, they also noted: "In the world of celebrity and entertainment news, even mainstream media couldn’t ignore exclusive stories broken under Dylan Howard’s tenure as senior executive editor of RadarOnline.com."
Howard also won Entertainment Journalism Story of the Year at the Los Angeles Press Club for ‘Mel Gibson: Sex, Lies & Audiotapes’ and a highly commended title for Best TV News Report in the 2007 Quill Awards, for excellence in Australian journalism.
In 2012, Howard joined BuzzMedia as editor in chief of Celebuzz.com. He returned as editor in chief of RadarOnline.com in April 2013. Thirteen months later, the site's parent company, American Media, Inc. named Howard editor in chief of the National Enquirer in addition to his role as editorial director of RadarOnline.com.