For the fourth week in a row, Wenner Media’s Us Weekly is featuring a Trump family member on its cover.
This week, first daughter Ivanka Trump and hubby Jared Kushner get the cover treatment — after Melania Trump, all the Trump kids, and Ivanka solo got top-billings.
So what gives?
Well, Jann Wenner is drawing closer to a deal to sell the title to David Pecker-led American Media Inc., industry sources were whispering on Thursday.
AMI owns Star magazine.
One industry observer said Wenner is giving the Trumps a high-profile to curry favor with Pecker, an unabashed Donald Trump supporter.
“Jann Wenner has sold out to the Trumps,” the person said. “There’s no doubt in my mind they’ve done this to pander to Pecker.”
Pecker, you’ll recall, ran stories critical of Hillary Clinton, plus some Trump-favorable fake news stories — such as one in AMI’s National Enquirer that said the father of Ted Cruz was linked to a plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy.
Of course, there could be a very sensible business reason that Us Weekly Editor-in-Chief Michael Steele put the Trumps on the cover four times in a row: They are selling like crazy.
Newsstand sales for the past three issues were up 40 percent, said one source.
Nonetheless, four Trump covers in a row when Wenner is looking to sell the title has people talking.
And there is also the issue that before any sale of Us Weekly to AMI can be finalized, President Trump’s regulators will need to sign off on the deal because it would put the No. 2 and No. 3 celeb weeklies under one roof.
As a deal with AMI grows more and more likely, insiders at Wenner Media are in a state of panic.
“AMI will gut this place,” said one worried insider. “Some believe as few as a dozen staffers will move downtown, which would mean 100 layoffs.”
Wenner and AMI declined to comment on any pending talks.
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