State: A lack of respect outrages tabloids

BOCA RATON -- After suffering the first fatality in the country's anthrax scare this fall, the company that publishes the saucy National Enquirer is back to its old form.

The tabloid now asks its 2-million readers to consider a new problem: "Do you think Prince William is out of control?"

But the tabloid's popularity outside Palm Beach County is overshadowed by an ongoing controversy inside the county.

The issue: What kind of corporate citizen is American Media Inc., the tabloid publishing empire that makes its living by stretching the truth and antagonizing the famous? Is its reputation so good that it deserves taxpayers' help to recover from anthrax contamination?

Last week, the controversy came to light when American Media CEO David Pecker called a news conference to angrily reject a $390,000 grant from Palm Beach County.

The money was to help the company cover the cost of moving to temporary offices in Miami and Delray Beach while its $4.6-million headquarters in a Boca Raton office park was being rid of anthrax. It was offered as an incentive to help keep the company in Palm Beach County after American Media began shopping for a new headquarters in neighboring Broward.

"They can keep their money," Pecker said, citing a number of instances in which government officials had not treated the company and its 390 local employees with a level of respect that acknowledged what they had been through.

One of those employees, photo editor Robert Stevens, died from anthrax. Another was hospitalized, and the rest of the work force, plus hundreds of visitors to the building, had to be tested and given antibiotics. Their health has been in question for weeks.

Among the alleged slights was a perceived lack of concern by Gov. Jeb Bush and the EPA's decision to let American Media clean its own building. The company says the contamination is a public health problem and the federal government should lead the way.

For Pecker, the final straw was a comment in the Palm Beach Post from a former member of the county's Business Development Board, who said American Media was extorting money from the county.

The next day, the defiant CEO said he would look outside the county and the state for a new headquarters. Gone would be its average salary of $65,000 and its annual revenues of $400-million.

Richard Rampell, an accountant whose term on the Development Board expired in September, said he did not know when he made the offending comment that the county offered the money. American Media had not asked for it.

Undeterred, Rampell said in an interview with the Times that the real problem with the grant is American Media and what it does with its publications.

"They tell outrageous stories about people, then they complain that they're being treated unfairly in the press," he said. "I just think that takes a lot of chutzpah. . . . They do things that aren't very nice."

What happened to the company was "terrible," Rampell added. "But don't expect a lot of sympathy."

He added he has received 20 calls of support from people who praised him for voicing what many think privately.

Giving $390,000 to a $400-million corporation makes no sense, he said. "That's probably what their revenues are for one hour."

Boca Raton Mayor Steven L. Abrams said he can't blame AMI's Pecker for reacting the way he did.

"You know, ultimately, they're human beings," he said of American Media. "That's why you wonder about the sensitivity of those kinds of comments."

Abrams, elected to lead this pastel paradise in a close election in March, came to respect American Media during the anthrax crisis.

The company and its reporters were "telling me things that I thought, 'that's ridiculous,' and sure enough, several days later, it would come to pass. . . . In fact, it turned out exactly as they said," said Abrams, who counts the publisher among Boca Raton's better corporate citizens.

Critics of the tabloid company forget that it's been part of Palm Beach County in one form or another since the early 1970s, said Lee Harrison, a former editor at American Media and the owner of the Blue Anchor British Pub in nearby Delray Beach, where many company employees are regulars.

He said editors' salaries reach well into the six figures.

"Because they make good money, they've all got nice houses, pay lots of taxes and the county benefits no end," he said. "You can't afford as a county to allow major companies to be pulling out until you have nothing."

Also, he said, tabloids have their place in life, regardless of what people think of them. "They're a form of escapism and entertainment to millions of people across the United States," Harrison said. "They're part of America."

In a small way, last week's tensions exposed some of the same feelings that have surfaced in other venues affected by terrorism since Sept. 11, as victims with boundless feelings of loss compete for limited money and public acknowledgement of their pain.

In New York, the families of those killed at the World Trade Center have at times been at odds with each other -- relatives of rescue workers versus relatives of office workers. At issue: who has suffered the greater loss.

For now, American Media's headquarters is surrounded by crime scene tape and a chain link fence, a jarring sight in an office park of handsome boulevards and snappy corporate logos.

The company has hired a consultant to monitor how the federal government cleans anthrax from the Senate Hart Office Building in Washington, D.C., then devise a cleanup plan based on that.

"That's going to be the best expertise on how you do it," said American Media spokesman Gerald McKelvey. The process could take months, he said.

After that, employees will be asked to vote. If at least 90 percent say they would return to work in the building, the company will move back in and the other 10 percent would be accommodated at some other location, McKelvey said.

If not, the company faces the prospect of having to sell a property stigmatized by anthrax, even if it is cleaned. But the news there could be better than expected, said Mike Kavanau, senior managing director at Holliday Fenoglio Flower, one of the state's top commercial real estate brokerage firms.

"I just think there are a lot of people who would want to buy a nice building at a discount," he said, noting that many properties have weathered the stigma of radon or asbestos problems. "I think the market's a lot more rational than that. . . . I think this too shall pass."

In much the same way, time will work to calm Pecker's temper, predicted Harrison, the Blue Anchor Pub owner. "The feeling is it was a little bit of saber rattling on his part."

It was at the Blue Anchor that American Media employees recently toasted Stevens, America's first anthrax victim, hoisting glasses of his favorite brew, Fuller's ESB (Extra Special Bitter).

Millions of supermarket customers saw his work on celebrities' faces.

"He was the one that got rid of their wrinkles and made their eyes more blue and touched up their lips so they looked their best," said Harrison "He was the best in the business."

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk