Jared Paul Stern

Jared Paul Stern (born c. 1971)^[1] is an American-Canadian editor, publisher, photographer, designer and former freelance reporter and columnist for the New York Post who gained national notoriety when he was accused by California billionaire businessman Ron Burkle of alleged extortion. Prior to the scandal, Stern had written for the popular "Page Six" column for 11 years.^[2]

Stern was a founding editor of Page Six magazine and wrote the New York Post columns "Nightcrawler" and Fashion Buzz for several years in addition to editing the Post's Books section. He worked briefly as the Executive Editor of Star Magazine, worked at New York magazine twice, and has had work published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, GQ, Details and Spy magazines among other publications. He currently edits DRIVEN, an online magazine about cars and style published by UrbanDaddy, owns a clothing line, Skull & Bones, has an antiques store in Maine, Cape Porpoise Outfitters, publishes the Sea Salt dining guide series, works as a freelance photographer and curator, is the literary editor of Room 100 magazine, and contributes to A Continuous Lean.

Born in Philadelphia and raised in Canada after his parent divorced and his mother remarried, Stern is a 1994 graduate of Bennington College. Stern was married to Ruth Gutman.^[1]

Burkle scandal

In April 2006, supermarket magnate and Democratic fundraiser Ron Burkle released selectively edited transcripts of six minutes of videotape of two face-to-face meetings he had had with Stern the previous month.^[3] In the sections made available to the media, Stern appears to try to extort $220,000 from Burkle in exchange for "protection" from inaccurate reporting about the billionaire in Stern's gossip columns. Burkle released copies of e-mails from Stern in which Stern inquires about the status of expected payments. Burkle had previously complained about erroneous stories about himself in the Post to Rupert Murdoch, his neighbor and owner of the newspaper, in a personal letter, to which Murdoch reportedly never responded.

Stern claims in a series of published interviews that he had been "set up" by Burkle, and was only in meetings with him to discuss a possible investment in his clothing company, Skull & Bones.

The Post suspended Stern while the video clips were made public, and fired him on April 21, 2006.^[3] Criminal charges have not been filed against Stern; federal prosecutors handed the case to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who declined to prosecute.^[4][5]

In October, 2006, an unnamed source leaked to the press that Stern had landed a contract with Simon & Schuster to publish a book, tentatively to be called Stern Measures, about the Post, its gossip pages, and various scandals with which he is familiar.^[6] However, on August 7, 2007, Gawker.com reported that the book deal had been cancelled.^[7]

In January 2007, the Associated Press ran a story saying that the federal investigation into Stern had been dropped. Stern later filed an unsuccessful civil lawsuit against not only Burkle, but also Frank Renzi, Michael Sitrick, William Sherman,, The New York Daily News, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton, claiming libel, emotional distress, interference in business relationship, injurious falsehood, abuse of process, and civil conspiracy.^[5][8][9]

References

External links

• The Phoenix
• The Observer
• JaredPaulStern.com
• "Tabloid’s Pre-emptive Strike", Mike Nizza, New York Times, May 18, 2007.