-By Lucia Moses

A week after waving goodbye to Bonnie Fuller, American Media Inc. chief David Pecker defended his former star editor’s $2 million salary, recapping her editing credentials and transformation of AMI’s Star magazine from a newspaper tabloid to a glossy celeb weekly in a crowded category.

Pecker said of Fuller, who was editor of Wenner Media’s Us Weekly, then Star, “She put a major jolt in the celebrity market. I don’t think there’s anyone I know who was worth more money.”

Pecker, speaking this morning (May 22) at a Magazine Publishers of America breakfast, also touched on the economics of the category and his company’s own desire to grow.

Despite a decline in unit sales across the category and a rate base and job cuts at his own celeb weekly last year, Pecker maintained that the field is strong and that the unit sales decline is a temporary blip that will turn around when the economy improves.

Still, he acknowledged magazines were facing pressure from magazine wholesalers, citing People’s decision to move its deadline to noon from midnight Tuesday.

People made the move to comply with wholesalers’ desire to cut back on deliveries in the face of rising gas prices; its on-sale date remains Friday.

“The wholesalers are really getting hit, and they’re not making any more three deliveries a week,” Pecker said. “I think wholesalers are going to push back and say, ‘you have to get the product there yourselves.’”

AMI was in talks with Source Interlink Cos. about a possible sale, but those discussions are off, according to sources, and Pecker also acknowledged the need for capital to expand his celebrity and fitness magazines to other platforms, as Forbes Inc. did in selling a minority stake to Elevation Partners. “I would do that in a heartbeat,” he said. “We would be willing to partner with almost anyone to do that.”