David J. Pecker

David Jay Pecker was born on September 24, 1951, in the Bronx, New York City. He is of Jewish descent. His father was a bricklayer who died in 1967 when Pecker was 16. To support his mother, he started bookkeeping for local businesses in New Rochelle, New York and in the Bronx. He graduated from New Rochelle High School in 1969 and enrolled at Westchester Community College. After transferring to Pace University, he graduated in 1973.

After college, Pecker began his career as an accountant at Price Waterhouse and in 1979 joined the accounting department at CBS's magazine division, rising to vice president and comptroller. Eight years later, CBS sold its magazine division in a leveraged buyout to its manager, Peter Diamandis; Pecker stayed on in his position. Diamandis later sold the magazines to Hachette Filipacchi Médias. After Diamandis's departure three years later, Pecker was appointed CEO at Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. In 1999, Pecker left Hachette when he raised capital from Thomas H. Lee Partners and Evercore Partners to buy American Media, Inc. (AMI), publisher of the Star, the Globe, the National Enquirer, and the Weekly World News.

During his time as chairman and chief executive officer of AMI Pecker was publisher of the magazines Men's Fitness, Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Fit Pregnancy, Shape and Star, as well as the supermarket tabloids National Enquirer, Star, Sun, Weekly World News, Globe. Sun and Weekly World News have ceased publication. In 2019, Pecker announced that he had agreed to drop more of AMI's tabloids and sell the National Enquirer, Globe and National Examiner to Hudson News.

Pecker is on the board of directors of iPayment Holdings, Inc., Sunbeam Products, Inc. and Next Generation Network, Inc. In August 2018, after his interactions with President Donald Trump were heavily reported, Pecker resigned as a director of Postmedia Network Canada Corp., a Canadian media company, a position he had held since October 2016.

In 2016, Pecker revealed to the Toronto Star that American Media Inc. now relied on support from Chatham Asset Management and its owner Anthony Melchiorre due to financial troubles. By the time Pecker agreed to sell the National Enquirer on April 10, 2019, Chatham Asset Management owned 80 percent of American Media Inc's stock. Melchiorre, who expressed dismay towards the National Enquirer's scandals involving assistance to Trump's 2016 Presidential campaign and blackmail of Jeff Bezos, was also instrumental in forcing Pecker and American Media Inc. to sell the National Enquirer as well.

AMI removed Pecker as CEO in August 2020, keeping him on in the role of executive advisor. Simultaneously, the company was renamed a360Media in anticipation of a merger with another Chatham property, the logistics firm Accelerate 360.

In 1987, Pecker married Karen Balan.

In April 2024, Pecker acknowledged that checkbook journalism was a part of his editorial philosophy, and that he also believed that “The only thing that is important is the cover of a magazine.”