Enquirer muscles up in L.A.

The National Enquirer has gone British for a new chief of the Los Angeles bureau. David Gardner, who had been West Coast editor of London’s Daily Mail, replaces Jerry George as the Enquirer’s West Coast editor. Gardner tells the L.A. Business Journal that the bureau is also adding two veteran British tabloid reporters.

Gardner said the West Coast bureau will continue to cover celebrities, but with a harder edge.

"The Enquirer is going back to its core values of real stories, real investigations, reported in depth," Gardner said. "It’s not going to be about the color of Britney’s underwear or what sort of bag Paris Hilton is carrying."

Gardner likes British journalists because they are aggressive and steeped in tabloid culture, he says, but most of the bureau’s 16 reporters will still be Americans.