The parent company of the Weider magazines;Flex,Muscle & Fitness, and Men's Fitness is American Media Inc.AMI as it's also known is a media company that owns the tabloid publications the National Enquirer,Star,The Globe,OK! and Soap Opera Digest.
They also own the online gossip site RadarOnline.com.
Here is their site. http://www.americanmediainc.com/
Weider Publications which was founded by Joe and Ben Weider was sold to AMI in 2003.Joe Weider died in 2013.Ben Weider,who was head of the International Federation of Bodybuilders,died in 2008.
Eric Weider,Ben's son,now runs the Weider family business.
Dr Rafael Santonja is now head of the IFBB.
Bodybuilding as it now exists was largely the Weider brothers creation.
AMI is in the business of selling sleaze,and muscle.I think that's bad for Bodybuilding.Joe Weider made a terrible mistake.
The circumstances are understandable.He was an old man and was aware of his mortality.I'm sure AMI offered a lucrative payout.But why didn't he consider the reputation of the company he sold out to? It was shortsighted to say the least.
The gossip empire of AMI is built on the worst kind of mentality.It panders to the petty minded curiosity,and contempt of the jealous losers of the world.A bunch of uneducated drudges who want to stick their noses up other people's business.People who for some reason find the private lives of celebrities interesting.They've been trained to consume this silly noxious nonsense.
Do they ever notice the fact that the gossip rags lie? And if they're not outright lying they're exaggerating,and warping the truth.Always taking the most sensationalistic view of things.Which is in fact not an ethical way to cover information.It's toxic.
Who can even keep up with the stream of lurid drivel that passes by on the store racks.Does anyone even bother to take any of it seriously? I don't know.I hope not many.
I suppose it would be possible to have a form of gossip that wasn't ruthless bile.But this isn't it.
So the latest mess involving this purveyor of crud is the feces throwing fest that is going on between AMI,and Dr Phil McGraw.
It seems they had some kind of agreement to lay off him,and it ran out.
He sued them.For quite a mint of money too.
So in retaliation AMI has blasted Dr Phil with a smear campaign across seemingly all of it's media outlets.
Including the bodybuilding websites.It's unwanted,and annoying.
It's not the muscle world's fight.But they are using everything they have to attack their enemy.
On the FLEX website for instance.
I don't know about,or particularly care about Dr Phil's case.I've never been a viewer of his show more than a few times.I have no idea how this will turn out.I have no idea if any of the allegations against him are true.
But it could be critical for AMI.No doubt they're concerned with the recent lawsuit against the gossip news site Gawker.They were sued by the pro wrestling performer Hulk Hogan for publishing a sex tape.
They lost. It might put them out of business.Of course they appealed.
I have no sympathy for them.They brought it on themselves.See the New York Times Gawker article of May 2016.
And here is one very pertinent quote from the article that AMI should keep in mind.
Several of the suits have found fault with Gawker’s tendency to link coverage across several websites, opening up the stories for reader discussion and, in some cases, online harassment.
So maybe not such a bright idea to run a smear job on all your websites?
I would honestly just laugh if this all blows up for AMI and guts them.That probably won't happen though.I don't have subscriptions to any of their fitness magazines.Most of the Bodybuilding scene is online now anyway.But still it's a shame for such a disreputable company to own these old muscle mags.
However this suit with Dr Phil turns out they should keep it off the Bodybuilding sites.
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