Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

Jeff Bezos, the man who owns the newspaper that produces this podcast, recently alleged

that the National Enquirer was blackmailing him with some racy photos.

Good evening, everyone. As we come on the air in the West,

there is breaking news tonight, a stunner from the richest man in the world, Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

He's dropping a bombshell against the National Enquirer tonight, accusing its parent company

of trying to blackmail him with alleged nude photos. This Todry episode has activated the irony radars of historians of early America.

It is a terrific irony without a shadow of a doubt.

Many journalists practiced systematic blackmail, not only in order to supplement the incomes, but in some cases

even to fund their newspapers. That's Leon Jackson of the University of South Carolina.

Jackson studies the history of books and authorship, which sounds like a job I'd love to apply for.

As part of his research, Jackson has spent a not insignificant part of his career

tracing blackmail in 19th century newspapers.

Back then, publications both reputable and scandalous routinely extorted society figures caught in compromising circumstances,

though typically not for sharing nude selfies.

While Bezos alleges the inquirer blackmailed him through back-channel communications via lawyers,

Jackson says the older, original form of journalistic blackmail, was far more brazen.

Newspapers did the blackmailing in the paper, sometimes right on the front page.

Jackson discovered numerous examples of the practice, including an episode from the Boston

Herald in 1848 that is emblematic of how sinister newspaper editors could be with embarrassing

information. A rich piece of scandal has reached our ears, wrote Harold editor Joseph Snelling.

He was referring to a scandal that, as he put it, concerned a young woman from

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