Correction: Brian Stelter, for the record...

Hey, we don't like it when the big "mainstream" news organizations stonewall us with their arrogance when we ask for a correction-- we're not through with you yet, LA Times and all your "readers representatives"!-- so we must take a moment to correct something we wrote about Brian Stelter, the New York Times media writer who we slammed and took more than a couple of cheap shots at for writing favorable stories about the syndicated television series based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site, TMZ.com.

We wrote that Stelter was a "youthful TV blogger-turned-New York Times special reporter" and a "21-year-old stunt hire" --"special" and "stunt" because he was hired by the Times after the paper profiled his TVNewser blog, as an "8i reporter."

Brian Stelter emails us with an important correction:

"For the record... I'm 22, and an 'intermediate reporter,' not a 'special reporter.'"

More impressive, in the comments section of his TV Decoder "blog" on the Times website (from which we quoted in yesterday's post on his TMZ stroke), he approved and posted our own comment that included a link to our analysis of the sticky TMZ situation, made a little less sticky by Brian Stelter's candor.

Also for the record, the New York Observer explained in October the circumstances and significance of hiring:

"When The New York Times hired 21-year-old Brian Stelter to write about digital media and television for the paper’s Business section, most stories about the hire noted two things: Mr. Stelter’s age, and his success in turning TV Newser, a blog about, mostly, cable TV, into a must-read in the industry.

"Three months later, it seems clear the hire means a lot more than that. It’s a sign that the Times is transforming its oldest institutional prejudices and promoting its reporters as brands in themselves.

"Mr. Stelter was hired under The New York Times’ '8i' program, which for years hired young reporters on a probationary basis, rotating them around usually to several different desks and then opting to make them permanent (union) employees if they proved themselves. No one was expected to start in the program with a specialty already developed (at least, developed to Times specifications). But sources said it seems unlikely, now that his TV Decoder blog has launched (complete with his photo)... that the Times will suddenly decide to switch Mr. Stelter to, say, Metro...

"Mr. Stelter’s rise to one of the most coveted jobs in journalism as a probationary reporter is proof that a bit of conventional wisdom for success on the Web— establish a brand!— is now good career advice at the newspaper of record, too."

Update: Kid blogger was NY Times' TMZ TV analyst ("Hit" label not so impressive any more)

We told you this morning that a headline in today's New York Times declared that the syndicated television series based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com is a "hit"-- and that the acompanying article praised the show and its 1.7 Nielsen rating as being far in the lead of a freshman crop that incudes a talk show hosted by Jerry Springer's bald bouncer. "Nice work, Harvey," we wrote.

And then someone at the Tabloid Baby staff lunch brought up the fact that the analytical and approving article wasn't written by the Times' first-string media reporter Bill Carter or the colorful Jacques Sternberg-- but by one Brian Stelter.

We wondered: Who is this experienced analyst of television ratings trends and pronouncer of hit shows, who spun the lowest-rated infotainment magazine show (with ratings well below the invisible Inside Edition) into "the top-rated new show in syndication"? A quick search on the Internet revealed that Mr. Stelter is a new hire. A young hire. And and a very pointed hire:

"The New York Times has recently hired Brian Stelter, the 21-year-old,Towson University graduate blogger behind TVNewser.com. The hire comes after the Times recently wrote an article about Stelter... which discusses the importance of his blog... which is frequented by top executives in the industry.

"In an internal memo, the Times discusses the hire: 'Brian Stelter, the TVNewser blogger, is joining the Times next month as an 8i reporter to cover the media world for NYTimes.com and for the paper. He will report to media editor Bruce Headlam, and will work closely with Business Day reporters and with our friends in Culture, including television editor Steve Reddicliffe and reporters Bill Carter, Jacques Steinberg and Ed Wyatt'..."

We've got nothing against 21-year-olds or bloggers (we've been accused of being "bloggers" ourselves), but knowing that the TMZ "hitmaker" is a kid with a potential rooting interest in seeing websites make the transition to television success does diminish the impact of the benediction from the paper-of-record.

But no worries. We don't think many members of the lazy mainstream media who'll copy the New York Times story and repeat the factoid will consider the byline.

(UPDATE: Our pals over at Fishbowl LA say we're trashing their former colleague. We're just trying to put things into perspective. Four months ago, the "mainstream media" would have shrugged off the 21-year-old's excited TMZ pronouncement as the work of a "blogger" in his "underwear" in his "basement." What a difference a New York Times byline makes.)

Sinking New York Times elevates stinking TMZ

Recent viewers of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com and its whitewashed syndicated television sister know the AOL and Time Warner-backed operation for its ugly misogynistic harassment of the troubled woman who gave birth to octuplets, and know its shaved bronzed midget frontman as the giddy giggling amalgamation of Sidney Falco and Roy Cohn who's shown up joyfully on local news and morning shows to wallow in the pugwash of the latest conscienceless backdoor gangbang perpetrated by his jealous Hollywood-hating attack squad.

But to readers of The New York Times, TMZ.com is a shining light of investigative muckraking journalism, not only challenging but leading the mainstream in the coverage of "billion-dollar business scandals and the economic collapse."

In a story that's hit the Times website tonight, reporter Brian Stelter states that TMZ actually "drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage with a blog post late last month that exclaimed, 'Bailout Bank Blows Millions Partying in L.A.' The site reported that Northern Trust, a bank that received $1.6 billion in taxpayer money, had hosted hundreds of clients and employees at a golf tournament and a series of parties in Southern California. 'Your tax dollars, hard at work,' the site wrote.

"Northern Trust never sought the bailout funds, but agreed to take them last fall at the behest of the government. Regardless, the photos of Tiffany gift bags and the grainy video clips of Chicago and Sheryl Crow performing for the group angered readers —as well as Congressional Democrats, who demanded in a letter that Northern Trust repay what the company 'frittered away on these lavish events.' The bank said it would do so 'as quickly as prudently possible,' news that earned four exclamation points from TMZ.

"Harvey Levin, the editor of TMZ, who called the story 'the most important thing we’ve ever done,' knows his readers don’t come to the site for a dissertation on mortgage-backed securities. 'It’s hard for people to wrap their heads around $800 billion in bailout money. It’s too big a thing,' he said. 'It’s much easier to understand paying for a Sheryl Crow concert.'"

At a time when established, major newspapers are folding left and right in the face of economic woes and Internet competition, such praise and validation in the pages of the financially-troubled New York Times seem outlandish and hard to even fathom-- unless you read TabloidBaby.com and remember our criticism of the boy blogger-turned-Times reporter.

After Stelter wrote his second gushing Times story about the TMZ TV show in December 2007, we wrote that "youthful TV blogger-turned-New York Times special reporter Brian Stelter continues to drag the former 'newspaper of record' down the slippery slope of hype and spin with his breathless adulation of the syndicated television series based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com."

While TMZ's most notable "contribution" to the coverage of the economic crisis has been its scapegoating and mocking of the so-called "Octomom," tabloid television shows have been, as Stelter praised TMZ and other infotainment shows, "expanding their coverage" since the Eighties, when A Current Affair covered the San Francisco earthquake and fall of the Berlin Wall. The acquisition of the Northern Trust celebrity party photos was the center of TMZ's jaded and cynical spin, but it was a very brief diversion from its usual corrupt fare. Stelter's use of the Times platform to give credibility to the site only gives Levin and his patrons more authority to state with a straight face that the work they do is of value and deserving of corporate and network support in expanding.

And all this comes on an evening when TMZ's gallery of online headlines is highlighted by

Reality Doc Sued Over Alleged Botched Vagina

and

Neverland Was Filled with Sculpted Boys

(Of special to irony to those who recall Harvey Levin's initial brush with the spotlight, TabloidBaby.com "drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage" in 2005 with its exclusive photos of Mitzvahpalooza, the $10 million bat mitzvah tossed by a Long Island defense contractor accused of supplying faulty body armour to US soldiers in Iraq, and featuring pop and rock stars like Don Henley, Tom Petty, 50 Cent and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. Mainstream organizations from Rolling Stone to Time magazine used our photos.)

TMZ & Jacko: Who you gonna believe? The New York Times or Hollywood's Rumor Rat? Think twice before you answer.

In the world of journalism, reporters and columnists look to the rung above them-- or even beneath them-- for what's already been published or posted, and accept the word as fact. So it goes with the spreading story that the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com scooped the world on the death of Michael Jackson because of its superior sources and technology. Though we proved on Friday that TMZ's early word of Jackson's untimely yet not entirely unsurprising bucket kick was based on a gamble-- shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin and his boy squad took the information everyone else had and ran with it before it was confirmed (an old, dangerous tabloid trick-- see the Bible, Tabloid Baby), the awestruck praise of the despised Hollywood sewer site is comin from "the top"-- in the form of a New York Times article that's been copied and commented upon by print columnists around the nation and world.


We should mention that the Times story is written by Brian Stelter, a boy blogger turned news man who, coming from the Internet and helping his musty print bosses understand its importance, has made a cottage industry of elevating TMZ.com in the eyes of the mainstream media.

Back in March, Stelter pushed the story that during the brouhaha over givernment bailouts, TMZ "drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage."

Our own criticism of Stelter's fawning TMZ coverage under the authority of the New York Times goes back to 2007, when he wrote more than one fawning article about the successful debut of TMZ's whitewashed syndicated television sister, which had actually opened to middling ratings, especially in comparison to entrenched infotainment shows.

It's an interesting situation we have here: The established, "mainstream" media doesn't trust Harvey Levin and TMZ enough to use it as a source on a major story like the death of Michael Jackson, yet it sources TMZ on other gossip items on a daily basis, praising the gutter operation and laying out the foundation for using it as a valid source in the future. Of course, the fact that TMZ is a division of Time Warner has little to do with that.


Meanwhile, we find that the unfiltered truth is coming from the independent sites run by real journalists, not TV lawywers like Levin. For example, Rumor Rat, the mysterious celebrity news site whose Big Cheese is obviously a veteran with perscpective and experience and whose team has swarmed across Hollywood and nibbled away at TMZ and Perez Hilton, recognizes who the real rats are.

NY Times' kid blogger gives TMZ another handjob

Youthful TV blogger-turned-New York Times special reporter Brian Stelter continues to drag the former “newspaper of record” down the slippery slope of hype and spin with his breathless adulation of the syndicated television series based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com.

For the second time in ten weeks, the 21-year-old stunt hire (the recent college graduate ran the TVNewser site, and was hired by the Times to boost its youthful cred when covering that Internets thing) has written a Times puff piece about the middling infotainment show, deceptively painting the camp, giggly TV version of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site as some kind of phenomenon, even while mentioning that the show lags millions of viewers and more than a couple of ratings points behind the more traditionally ass-kissing Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood and the like:

‘The three-month-old television version of ‘TMZ,’ which is based on the popular Web site about the foibles of Britney, J. Lo and the like, continues to rank as the top-rated new show in syndication.

“Harvey Levin, the managing editor of TMZ.com and the host of the series, said he has been thrilled with the popularity of the celebrity gossip show…

“The ‘TMZ’ staff holds a 6:30 a.m. P.T. meeting to plot the day’s coverage. The program is produced at 1 p.m.; a few affiliates broadcast it live and most others show it later in the day.

"The program has drawn an average rating of 2.0 in recent weeks, or roughly 2.2 million viewers, placing it well behind the established entertainment news brands (‘Entertainment Tonight,’ ‘Access Hollywood’) but ahead of the other recent additions to the syndication market (‘The Steve Wilkos Show,’ ‘Crosswords’)...”

So if TMZ TV isn't really a hit, why the drumbeat of praise, which, coming from the Gray Lady's website today, will only be repeated as gospel by the lazy mainstream media? We pointed out back in October, when Stelter wrote the first major TMZ “hit” spin, that the writer’s youth, background and excitement over seeing a website translate to a TV series, may have colored the Times coverage. This basic reprint of the original story in the final days of the year, coming the day after TMZ.com’s very dangerous Will Smith-Hitler-JDL slam, is questionable to say the least.

In any case, the real analysis comes from the ones who are a bit more savvy, experienced and knowledgeable about television. That would be the readers:

A sampling of some of the comments from the The Times’ website:

Never saw it, didn’t know it was on TV, couldn’t care less. If it’s anything like Entertainment Tonight or Access Holywood, I don’t want to see it. Both of them are 30 minutes of irritating jump cuts, stories with no content and adolescent pandering to celebrities who should be ashamed of themselves for the way they act. Whatever happened to dignity?
— Posted by Lloyd Perell

Everytime I hear about these shows, I think of Princess Diana dead in that tunnel in Paris with the paparazzi hovering around taking pics. I don’t see how the American public can condone the behavior that TMZ and other shows cause their paparrazi to do so that they can have an “exclusive”. Last I saw was a person following Julia Roberts to her kids school. That’s irresponsible and can dangerous to her kids.
— Posted by ATL Guy

We need to start asking some larger questions in relation to not only the cultural focus on celebrities, but also the focus on very specific Hollywood women with very specific behavioral patterns.
In an interview with the Arizona Republic, the musician Tori Amos was asked: “Does it trouble you that the obsession of both media and fans with such damaged figures as Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Anna Nicole Smith seems to get stronger each year?”
Amos answers: “You have to define what the obsession is, because it’s not about respect. In the old days, when you think about the screen sirens – Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Catherine Deneuve – they were more on a pedestal... Some of these women had really developed an inner sense, and they had great writers. So when you look at some of the people who are (now) getting the obsession, we are obsessed with watching people destroy themselves because it makes us feel better about our lives. And that’s what is a little disconcerting.”
— Posted by Mandy

Well, that’s a shame. Bad enough the bottom feeders found a foothold on the internet, now they’re on tv. It’s a vicious cycle. Let’s find something new, build it up, make it popular, then hunt it down, rip it to shreds and dance on the grave. (Sounds like one of the insipid animations from the show.) Maybe for a sweeps period, they can turn their investigative eyes inward on themselves and show all their own embarassing habits and fetishes. (That would be the snake eating its own tail…)
— Posted by D Loehr

Success, eh? Reminds me of the old saying that, “nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence or good taste of the American public.”
And no one seems to be able to figure out why America is producing a generation of self-absorbed idiots? The “success” of TMZ is just further evidence of our insatiable obsession with lurid human behavior.
No wonder the rest of the world looks on in disgust at this country these days.
— Posted by Playashot

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that if there was ever a Frontline episode where they revealed The Big Truth about ‘Bush’s war for Oil’ and how the corporations helped and are guilty of being all corporationy, most people would would click right pass it looking for American Idol. lm3rs! lol!! OMG! ponieees!!!! Welcome to capitalist America.
— Posted by Geoffe Du Marciand

Extraordinary. 
The dumbing down of America on the web wasn’t complete enough so now it comes to TV.
I liked Harvey when he covered legal issues for local TV in LA. Smart, to the point. I’m sure he still sleeps at night but I hope he asks himself if he’s making society better or worse? Better for him, no doubt, worse for the rest of the world.
He’s one of the reasons we’re reviled — and copied — in the rest of the world.
 A degenerate telling us about other degenerates.
Entertainment? I’d rather have needles stuck in my eyes.
— Posted by Peter A. Lake

2.2 million viewers… that’s about the same number of prisoners being held in US jails. Wake up. This article is just hype. TMZ does not represent mainstream America.
— Posted by John

(UPDATE here!)

Mainstream media begins to realize TMZ's Jacko death scoop was not what it seemed

It's taken them a few days to catch up, but the established mainstream media is beginning to clear the stardust out of their eyes and realize there was something fishy about corporate, porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com scooping the world on the death of Michael Jackson.


We laid out the evidence on Friday that under the leadership of shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin, TMZ took the same information that everyone else had and gambled that it spelled out that Jacko was dead-- that they ran the "Michael Jackson is dead" story before getting official confirmation, before knowing for sure. The upside? Well, look at how the mainstream media, from Brian Stelter in the New York Times to beaten beat writers in the Los Angeles Times, have responded with awestruck wonder at the supposed technological and journalistic brilliance of the jealous, corrupt mutts at TMZ for going with the story a good forty minutes before anyone else (see Dan Rather at Parkland Hospital). The downside? There's not much of a downside. There was enough confusion in which smarmy sleazy Harvey could have slimed his way out of it, and gotten the attention just the same (see The Hitler Diaries).


This afternoon, the Los Angeles Times website runs -- and Drudge headlines as a "whine"-- a "comment" piece entitled, "How would we have reacted if TMZ had been wrong about Michael Jackson's death?"

Alexandra Le Tellier writes:

"TMZ would become the first outlet to announce the singer’s death. What came next was a surprise. Before the RIPs and the 'he touched us all' jokes, many users began posting jabs aimed at CNN -- more specifically, its irrelevance as a news source...

"Has technology’s ability to deliver information at such a rapid pace corrupted us? ...Have our standards for accountability dissolved?

"...And who was TMZ’s source anyway? The site’s managing editor, Harvey Levin, said he and his staff made hundreds of calls, but he didn't divulge whom they spoke to, which begs the question of whether they confirmed the news with a reliable, accountable source -- as is required by the Los Angeles Times -- or if they spoke to someone who was violating patient confidentiality.

"When 19 employees at this same hospital, UCLA Medical Center, were busted in 2008 for snooping through Britney Spears’ confidential medical records, it was hard not to wonder why they’d have risked their jobs. Were they looking for a story to sell just as their colleague, Lawanda Jackson, had done? She was indicted in 2008 for selling information about Farrah Fawcett and accessing hundreds of other files. If that’s the case here, are we seriously going to trust people who’re willing to break the law for some fast cash?

“'A curious thing is at play here,' (NY Times syndicate ethics columnist Jeffrey) Seglin continues. 'Few people expect TMZ or Drudge or the National Enquirer to get things right or to report on issues of substance. When they do, at least so far, it’s a bit of an anomaly. So the consequences for getting it wrong among such sites do not seem terribly high. If CNN, Fox … got such things wrong, the consequences would likely be higher...'

"Would TMZ take the same approach to a political figure, which in turn could pose a threat to national security? Let’s hope we never find out."

Though the article is deep in the Times' little-read Blog section and its writer is under the impression that TMZ got a legitimate scoop through illegal, paid sources, it's significant for a few reasons. The writer quotes an ethicist from the national competitor in New York, whose kid TV writer led the TMZ cheerleading over the weekend-- a sign that after their initial starry-eyed reaction to being beaten on the story, the old world news media is gathering the forces to get back at the sleazy TV lawyer who broke the rules. Drudge may call it a "whine", but obviously unhappy being lumped in with TMZ, he posted the link on his influential page, which means talk radio producers and other news organizations too lazy to come up with their own ideas will pick up the TMZ story.


And even though the TMZ gamble paid off in the end, the Jackson death stunt does not bode well for TMZ's plans to encroach further into Washington, D.C. politics and matters of national importance. Its corporate overlords Time Warner and AOL may have found it cute when Harvey and his boys began comparing the pectoral muscles of congressmen or playing their curbside ambush games in Georgetown, but they wouldn't be happy at all if their bastard child jumped the gun on an assassination and caused panic and riots in the streets.

Developing...

So what about the Masturbating Bear?

So NBC is finally wrapping up the Conan O'Brien debacle and, after a break for the Olympics, will head into another three months of critical headlines about the mediocrity of Jay Leno when he gets the timeslot back. Conan and his people played it well-- a lot better than he played as host of The Tonight Show, which we all stopped watching after the first week (he never should have brought back Andy Richter-- it was a retreat to the infantile comedy he did in the early days of The Late Show, not even Letterman does the hip "irony" thing anymore, and Conan didn't click as a full-fledged talent until after he dumped the playacting sidekick and went solo). The only question that matters is whether NBC gets to keep the "intellectual property rights" to his sketches which would mean it's the last anyone will ever see of The Masturbating Bear.

One thing the saga did demonstrate was how the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com is consistently wrong in its reporting and how dangerous it is for lazy paid mainstream journos to use it as a source. From its ever-shifting details of the contents and timing of the settlement, the site and its shaved bronzed midget frontman made it clear that, as when they rolled the dice in reporting the death of Michael Jackson prematurely, they make shit up, and as long as they have supporters like Brian Stelter at the New York Times to give them attribution and feature stories whenever they happen to be correct, they're golden.

The New York Times declares: 'TMZ TV is a hit!'

We guess it depends on how you look at the numbers, but the stately gray New York Times has declared this morning that the syndicated television show based on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com is a hit!

On Thursday, we’d told you that a month after the TV show’s debut, weekly ratings finally showed up on the national charts (the corporate suits behind TMZ sent the first two weeks numbers back to be “reprocessed” because they didn’t like them.)

The third week’s 1.7 national rating placed the new show last among the infotainment magazine shows. The stodgy old promotion tool Entertainment Tonight posted a 4.8, nearly three times that of TMZ (Inside Edition, a show that you’d assume was canceled years ago, rated almost twice as much, with a 3.3).

But the three weeks the AOL Time Warner Telepictures suits had to spin the early numbers has paid off, as the NY Times, which, with its writers like Alesandra Stanley, Virginia Heffernan and Jennifer 8, has dipped its own gnarly toe into the celebutard culture, bit. Writes Times reporter Brian Stelter:

"TMZ”… illustrates just how valuable the celebrity news niche has become… By the end of the month, it was the top-rated new show in syndication by a wide margin, delivering a 1.7 household rating, or about two million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research… “Entertainment Tonight,” the longtime leader among entertainment shows with a 4.8 household rating the same week, has little to worry about, at least for the time being. But “TMZ” is one of the first sites to successfully turn its Internet brand into a television series, and it has performed especially well among younger viewers…

More crucial, is the help of the Times Headline writer who topped the article with the hedder:

Celebrities caught off guard? ‘TMZ’ is a hit

Accurate or not, that’s the headline the AOL Time Warner Telepictures salespeople are emailing to station managers and TV writers across the country adding to their press kits this morning. And lazy mainstream reporters will pick up the story and the self-fulfilling spin means that yes indeed, TMZ is a hit!

Nice work, Harvey!