Dylan Howard

Dylan Howard (born January 19)^[1] is an entertainment journalist and print and digital news executive who has appeared on Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, CNN, Fox News, HLN, CBS News, ABC's Nightline, Good Morning America, MSNBC, Inside Edition, the BBC and Britain's Sky News. He is a regular guest on HLN's prime-time programs Jane Valez Mitchell and Dr. Drew, reporting and commentating on various entertainment and crime stories. Since relocating from his native Australia, Howard gained an international reputation as one of the world’s premier investigative entertainment journalists.

He is currently the Vice President of News at American Media, where he holds the roles of Editorial Director of RadarOnline.com and Editor in Chief of the National ENQUIRER. He is a former Executive Editor of STAR magazine, Editor in Chief of CELEBUZZ and worked as an on-air reporter and producer for the Seven Network in Australia.

An 18 July 2012 profile on Howard on the media website MediaBistro stated, "In the world of celebrity journalism, few stars are rising faster than that of Celebuzz Editor In Chief Dylan Howard" and referred to him as "The king of Hollywood scoops."

Howard was named the 2011 Entertainment Journalist of the Year at the National Entertainment Journalism Awards (NEJA). He is a 5-time NEJA winner, 14-time finalist and has previously won L.A. Press Club awards for online news reporting—Mel Gibson audio tapes—and investigative journalism, for exposing a secret Hollywood poker ring involving A-List actors Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio. He has been nominated 11-times for various L.A. Press Club awards.

Early career

Dylan grew up in Geelong, Victoria.^[1] He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Deakin University in Australia.

He moved to the United States in January 2009 after an award winning stint as a television journalist for the Seven Network, based in Melbourne, Australia. Since, he has traded his time between New York and Los Angeles.

Dylan's 2007 report on the impending sacking of an Australian football coach was highly commended for a prestigious Quill Award - for excellence in Victorian journalism, in the Best TV News Report category.

Before he entered Hollywood ranks, Dylan also worked for Reuters Television in New York, The Geelong Advertiser and Southern Cross Television in Tasmania; the latter both Australian media outlets.

He began his career at The Geelong Advertiser, the six-day-a-week paper for the city of Geelong. He wrote an opinion page for the Saturday edition, Sport Section, titled "Howard's Way" until his relocation to the United States.

While at Southern Cross, Dylan obtained exclusive interviews with former Governor Richard Butler and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and his partner Mary Donaldson.

Dylan has also been published in the News of the World, Hello, Woman's Day, New Idea, Grazia, OK! Magazine, Men's Style, Alpha, RALPH Magazine, Loaded, M Magazine Dubai, In Touch and The Sunday Mail's Celebs On Sunday.

Channel 7

Dylan joined Channel 7 in 2005 as a Sports Reporter. His primary reporting focus was AFL, but during the summer months he would present the sports report on the 6 o'clock Channel 7 Melbourne news. Howard didn't have his contract renewed by Channel 7 in January 2009.^[2]

Controversy

Dylan has been involved in a number of controversial stories in his career at Channel 7:

• Dylan was on assignment in Ireland when it emerged star footballer Brendan Fevola had been in a fight with that pub's bartender, whilst he was a member of the All Australian team visiting Ireland for the International Rules Series^[3] Seven News purchased the video tape from a pub in Galway, Ireland.

Drugs in Sport

• Michael Braun. Jason Akermanis wrote an article ^[4] for Melbourne's NewsCorp paper the Herald Sun, stating that he 'felt' that a player that was his direct opponent in a game earlier in one season, seemed able to run faster and had better recovery against him in another game later in that season. The implication was that Akermanis felt that this player was using a form of EPO Performance Enhancing Drug's. Jason didn't name the player in his article. Dylan's role in this issue became evident just days after this article was published. Dylan, who to date has yet to name his source,^[5] revealed that the player who Jason was referring to was Michael Braun ^[6] a player for the West Coast Eagles. No other evidence has ever surfaced to support the claims made by Akermanis, who later apologised to Braun.
• Medical records. The medical records of players from an AFL club were claimed to have been found in the gutter outside a clinic by a woman. After allegedly attempting to return the documents to the clinic and finding that the gates were locked tried to ring all the media outlets in Melbourne to offer the documents, as a "public service".^[7] Her asking price was A$3,000. Channel 7 decided to purchase the documents. At or around 4:15 Friday 24 August 2007, Channel 7 started promoting on-air that it had a "huge story" related to AFL and drugs and would reveal this in their nightly news at 6pm AEST. Howard then went to air and named the club that these two players played for. A court injunction was sought to suppress the name and club mentioned in the records and was granted by Justice Kim Hargrave of the Supreme Court of Victoria.^[8] Later on 24 August, during half time on Channel 7's Friday Night Football, Howard participated in an on-air interview, conducted by Tim Watson where he claimed that after contacting the AFL, they had given Howard "approval" to go to air with the story. This interview went live, via Fox Sports, to NSW and Queensland and on the CCTV at the stadium, Telstra Dome, but was not in the program that aired on the Seven Network during the delayed coverage into Victoria, South Australia or Western Australia, after Howard admitted he inadvertently misspoke. Howard, on Tuesday 28 August 2007, went on 3AW during the Sport's Today program and explained to Caroline Wilson that his comments on Friday night had been misinterpreted and that he had "apologised to those who misunderstood that at the time".^[9] The AFL CEO, Andrew Demetriou, then responded to Howard's interview on 3AW, saying that "... It's mischievous, he has re... , and we have asked him to apologise, given that it went to air in two states, and all Dylan Howard had to do was apologise. We will not be misrepresented, to people, about the AFL supporting a story that we've already said publicly we find obscene, abhorrent, the route of gutter journalism ...".

Entertainment Journalism

Dylan left Reuters in May 2010 after being approached to head RadarOnline.com. So began a career at the epicenter of the world’s media during some of the most tumultuous and outrageous stories of modern times. Hollywood was rocked by racist and hate fuelled audiotapes of Oscar-winning actor/director Mel Gibson blasting former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva; Lindsay Lohan’s drug-fuelled antics and jailing; the controversial death of Michael Jackson; the scandal plagued death of screen darling Farrah Fawcett; the naming of the mother of Schwarzenegger’s ‘love child’; the demise of star-on-the-rise politician Anthony Weiner, who was caught by Howard in a series of lewd online messages that he had sent women; and the Tiger Woods sex allegations.

Through Howard's reporting, an audience has found themselves enthralled by a stream of celebrity news which has often brought Hollywood’s biggest names to their knees.

During his tenure guiding RadarOnline.com, the celebrity news site attained a new level of visibility in the world’s media, after Howard single-handedly broke the Gibson scandal after covertly obtaining the expletive laden audiotapes. ‘RadarOnline's daily doses of the explosive Mel Gibson audio... has turned the site into a media powerhouse,’ wrote The Daily Beast.

The Washington Post also profiled the site’s rise as a major media player, while the Los Angeles Times noted: ‘Some of the world's biggest stories have raised the site’s profile like the Gibson saga, which effectively cemented Radar's credibility in the world of celebrity.’ The New York Times added: ‘There's a lot to learn from RadarOnline's way of delivering and distributing stories.’

In 2011, Howard was named Entertainment Journalist of the Year at the National Entertainment Journalism Awards, where the judges labeled him the "go-to guy for authoritative showbiz news and analysis on cable and over-the air television." In awarding him the top national honor, they also noted: “In the world of celebrity and entertainment news, even mainstream media couldn’t ignore exclusive stories broken under Dylan Howard’s tenure as senior executive editor of RadarOnline.com.”

RadarOnline.com also won Best Entertainment Website at the national awards, with the judges noting Howard's site was a "lively, jam-packed, well-designed site draws in the reader immediately with exclusives, interesting photos, grabber headlines and off-beat insider peeks at Hollywood stars and wannabe stars. Once you click on an item you often find fun writing or surprising information. This is a talented team that understands it’s fun to cover Hollywood.”

Howard was also awarded an honorable mentions in the television news category for his world exclusive interview with Charlie Sheen and tell-all interview with Gibson’s former partner, Oksana Grigorieva.

Howard also won Entertainment Journalism Story of the Year (2011) at the Los Angeles Press Club for ‘Mel Gibson: Sex, Lies & Audiotapes’ and a highly commended title for Best TV News Report in the 2007 Quill Awards, for excellent in Australian journalism.

In 2012, Howard joined BUZZMEDIA as Editor in Chief of Celebuzz.com. He returned as Editor in Chief of RadarOnline.com in April 2013. Thirteen months later, the site's parent company, American Media, Inc. named Howard Editor in Chief of the legendary tabloid, the National ENQUIRER, in addition to his role as Editorial Director of RadarOnline.com.

References