Generoso Pope bought the New York Enquirer in 1952 for $50,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generoso_Pope_Jr.
>He worked for the CIA's psychological warfare unit in 1950
Pope bought the Enquirer with a loan from Costello
Generoso, known as Gene, Pope was friendly with Frank Costello who headed the Genovese crime family and later "the commission" until he was shot in the head in the Biltmore barber shop in 1957.
> He’d learned that the New York Enquirer, a newspaper owned by William Griffin, was in deep financial trouble and that Griffin was looking for a buyer. The price: $75,000, with a third down. Gene was coming off a wrenching family confrontation, with his older brothers Fortune and Anthony and their mother, Catherine, that had effectively cut him out of Pope family businesses that Generoso, Sr. had intended that Gene would run. Gene had just returned from a Florida honeymoon with his first wife, Patty McManus, and had what he estimated to be $5,000, hardly enough to buy even a failing rag like the Enquirer.
“Yeah, I’ll lend you the twenty-five grand for the down payment,” Costello told him, “but let me broker the deal. Griffin owes me a favor. Are you sure you want it?”
Strings attached
>Costello would give him the down payment of $25,000 with no interest, but there were a few strings attached. The longest of them would be that Gene was not to mention gangsters or racketeers or organized crime in any way. The New York Enquirer’s front page had been taking on organized crime almost every week. While the paper was going bust, Enquirer readers had been treated to: “ANASTASIA SEIZED WITH 25” (about the brutal Brooklyn mob boss Albert “The Earthquake” Anastasia); “G-MEN SEIZE SLOT MACHINES WORTH MILLIONS, ARREST 44”; “U.S. LIFTS FRONTS OF MOBSTERS”; “ANGRY CHICAGO ROUNDS UP HOODLUMS”; “U.S. TRACES DOPE INFLUX TO LUCIANO”; and “RUDOLPH HALLEY REVEALS NEW CRIME CZAR AS COSTELLO QUITS” (about how publicity from the recent Kefauver Commission Senate hearings into organized crime had weakened Costello). Costello’s second condition for letting Gene have the money was that the paper would have to run features and photos and good reviews of the nightclubs he and his pals owned, and of the performers they managed. Third, the Enquirer would attack the enemies of organized crime, especially do-gooder politicians trying to make a name for themselves by going after gangsters. Costello was to be repaid in cash as soon as possible, delivered to him week by week as money came in from newsstand sales.
Summary: The National Enquirer is a mob paper. It has always been a mob paper, and while it makes some money from circulation and a little from advertising, it controls a large amount of "personal data" on US politicians, celebrities and royalty.
The Enquirer is, and always has been a blackmail and extortion operation. Most newspapers have cabinets full of stories they haven't run on influential people, but they’re a critical part of Nat Enquirer's business model.
https://www.thedeedsofmyfathers.com/ppope-deeds-excerpts.htm