• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, May 4, 2007

Taking a couple steps down the editorial ladder, Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle is rumored to be interested in buying American Media Inc., the publisher of supermarket tabloids the National Enquirer, Star and Weekly World News, according to a report in the New York Post on Thursday.

Burkle is said to be pursuing a deal to merge American Media with Source Interlink Companies, owned through his Yucaipa Companies, which provides marketing services to magazine publishers and retailers, including distribution specialty retail operations and designing and implementing front-end retail merchandising operations.

The company's focus on in-store merchandising makes it a good candidate for a merger with American Media's array of tabloid-style publications, which are typically sold in cash-register checkout lanes. Alongside the tabloids, American Media also publishes Globe, Flex, Men's Fitness, Mira, Muscle and Fitness, and Shape. Yucaipa operates its own distribution, licensing and brand development businesses.

Burkle failed in his bid to buy the Tribune Company when the company accepted a rival $8.2 billion offer from Chicago real-estate mogul Sam Zell instead. The rebuff followed a bidding war between Zell and Burkle, teamed with his partner Eli Broad.

In his first public interview after the purchase, Zell publicly criticized Broad and Burkle for alleging he had unfair access to information during the final stages of the auction, and dismissed any possibility of bringing them in as partners. "If somebody calls me and says I want to be a partner, and the next day tries to stick a knife in my back, tell me again why I would want to do business with him?"