Dylan Howard

• Michael Braun. Jason Akermanis wrote an article [13] 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 performance-enhancing drugs. Jason didn't name the player in his article. Howard's role in this issue became evident just days after this article was published. Howard, who to date has yet to name his source,[14] revealed that the player who Jason was referring to was Michael Braun [15] 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".[16] 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 its 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.[17] 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, it had given Howard "approval" to go to air with the story. This interview went live, via Fox Sports to New South Wales and Queensland and on the CCTV at the 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".[18] The AFL CEO, Andrew Demetriou, then responded to Howard's interview on 3AW, saying that "It's mischievous, 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".

Howard received media attention for providing Harvey Weinstein with information about Rose McGowan, an actress who made a sexual harassment claim directed toward Weinstein. Howard provided this information to Weinstein at the time Weinstein was denying any harassment claims, and did so to maintain a strong working relationship with Weinstein due to "mutual business interests."[19] Howard stated that he pursued Weinstein's request "as a courtesy" but refused to publish any material about the subject,[20] resisting each of Weinstein's "repeated efforts" to have Howard publish favourable stories about him or unfavorable stories about his accusers.[21]

On March 7, 2018, Howard successfully sued Nine Network's 60 Minutes after they unlawfully trespassed on private property and attempted to question him about the Weinstein story in the lobby of his New York office.[21]

In 2017, the Associate Press reported on an inquiry conducted by American Media in 2012 about a sexual harassment allegation toward Howard, but concluded there was no serious wrongdoing.[22] American Media has supported Howard through the accusations, calling the accusations "baseless."[23]

On February 7, 2019, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com and owner of the Washington Post, accused Howard and others at AMI of attempting to blackmail him by threatening to release private photos of Mr Bezos. Bezos published an email sent by Howard to Bezos' attorney in which he described various lurid private photographs in AMI's possession including a "below the belt selfie - otherwise colloquially known as a d*ck pic." Bezos also disclosed Howard's email address. AMI attorney Jon Fine followed the email with demands that Bezos cease an ongoing investigation of AMI's previous release of Bezos' private text messages.[24][25]

Howard has been involved in a number of controversial stories in his career at Channel 7: He was on assignment in Ireland when it emerged star footballer Brendan Fevola had been in a fight with that pub's bartender while he was a member of the All Australian team visiting Ireland for the International Rules Series[26] Seven News purchased the video tape from a pub in Galway, Ireland.

The New York Times reported on August 23, 2018 that Howard was cooperating with federal investigators examining hush payments made by Michael Cohen to two women on behalf of President Donald Trump.[27] Vanity Fair reported that Howard had received witness immunity in exchange for his testimony.[28] Ronan Farrow claims in his book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators that American Media, Inc. and the National Enquirer shredded sensitive Trump-related documents held in a top-secret safe on orders from then-Editor-in-Chief Howard the same day a reporter from the Wall Street Journal asked for a comment for a story about how AMI paid $150,000 to Karen McDougal to keep her story about having an affair with Trump quiet before the election.[29][30]