• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, July 11, 2005

Who among us has not stopped to reflect on the road not taken in our careers and wondered how our lives might have differed had we made that other choice? I recall being recruited to do PR for Playboy back when it was a mighty, worldwide brand and deciding, at the end of the day, that all the LeRoy Neiman art and Shel Silverstein poems and David Halberstam and Nat Hentoff bylines aside, it was still about the naked women.

And so too might that muse have crossed Stuart Zakim's mind as the senior vice president corporate communications for American Media heard these words issue from his very own mouth: "American Media stands for quality journalism."

The occasion was a public apology (and donation to the Arizona Burn Center's Foundation for Burns and Trauma) after American Media Inc.'s Weekly World News named Phoenix police officer Jason Schechterle (who was tragically burned and disfigured four years ago when a taxicab rammed into his patrol car, which burst into flames) one of the 10 ugliest people in the world.

There are a great many adjectives that come to mind for the kind of journalism practiced by a publication (or company) which could dream up such a bottom-feeding idea as a list of the 10 ugliest people in the world, but "quality" isn't one of them. And it doesn't matter who got fired, or how quickly they pulled the issues off the newsstands, the fact that it was considered a viable story idea in the first place is nearly as repugnant as featuring the likeness of a police officer disfigured in the line of duty. And one can never be sure the donation and apology weren't the most expeditious ways of avoiding what was sure to be a breath-taking lawsuit.

You can't help but think that H. L. Mencken's "No one ever went broke under-estimating the taste of the American public" is somewhere painted on the entrance way of American Media's newly relocated headquarters. Door's through which Zakim must pass daily.

I don't know Zakim. He largely built his reputation as a savvy magazine PR guy working for the notoriously difficult Jann Wenner (publisher of Rolling Stone, Us, and Men's Journal Magazines) from 2001 until that fateful day in January 2004 when he opted to be on David Pecker's payroll. Since then, I am guessing, he has earned every nickel of his salary trying to keep the American public from thinking that he labors in a cesspool of poor judgment and bad ideas. That there is even a market for most of what American Media publishes speaks volumes about the bi-polar nature of 21st century American culture.

One wonders if each week Zakim takes home the various publications he represents, tosses them on the coffee table and says with pride to his kids, "This is what daddy does."