TMZ TV: Goodbye, Mr. Levin

It opens with a dream sequence.

Harvey Levin is a buffed, bronzed, dyed and pumped Mr. Chips, presiding over a class of pretty young boys at a West Hollywood version of a British boarding school. As Harvey stands with a pastel marker to scrawl celebrity names on a wall of glass, the young pretties compete for his approval by pitching him gossip stories. There’s a beautiful Death in Venice twink with a mane of streaked blonde hair, straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue. Harvey fixes him with a smoldering, come-hither stare that has little to do with the story the boy is teasing...

And Monday's premiere of the televised version of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com was underway! Who’d have predicted that the nastiness, kink and coprophiliac sleaze of the website would be replaced by pure camp? While the website is a stinky cesspool, the TV show is a boys-only bubblebath—the television equivalent of that purple TeleTubby used by TMZ.com to mark the deaths of famous gays or conservatives.

But it was in the cards from the beginning. Aside from the queeny asides like "It's bewildering, Bitch!" (note to producers: a male co-host should not utter that line.), the frenetic, whiplash-inducing ride through rehashed video, movie clips, animated cut-outs and vaporous, wispy, dated stories, TMZ the TV show takes its cues— and replays many of the same stories-- from its mothership, Extra!, and the other infotainment shows that replaced storytelling and content with fast-paced fluff about ten years ago. Add the blurry TMZ.com video shot by its cut-rate kiddie harassment squad and the on-the-cheap graphics, and the show and look are a lot closer to the low-budget one-hour pop culture specials that clog and kill time on VH1 and the E! channel.

Harvey, with this Roy Cohn-meets-Barry Diller countenance, popped up throughout the first episode, but his putative co-hosts, all bent noses and too much pancake makeup, were hard to find. A dour Teresa Strasser, looking the worse for wear after months of battering by the execrable Adam Carolla on morning radio, literally got about three seconds of airtime near the end. Two of the pretty young boys had already appeared twice on the show before she and the other hired female made an appearance.

Boys, Boys, Boys

Harvey’s younger male counterpart, the left-leaning Hollywood scion Ben Mankiewicz, didn’t show up until Day 2, by which time someone in the hierarchy had demanded that executive producer Harvey add some females into his locker room opening. So two young women were hauled out to pretend to pitch Harvey stories. But the boy toy male model again returned for a cameo.
(Do we see a gossip item in the making?)

Ben was placed in the sequence to appear as if he was watching from the sidelines like a bemused Rafael Abramovitz. He followed up by pissing all over the TMZ concept by embarrassing the celebutard crowd Harvey has been elevating, with a “Jaywalking” segment meant to prove that they don’t know the year of the September 11th attacks.

Too bad that the 9/11 Q&A shtik has been done before, to greater effect, not only on Leno’s show, but on other television shows and more than once on YouTube (check out a version here that was posted in May). You're a copycat, bitch! Even so, it was a statement, a clear sign that Ben thinks he’s above the fray and that the clock is already ticking until the day he walks off the show in high dudgeon (we say it was in the cards from the day he was hired).

Gay code?

It was about six minutes into that second show that Harvey’s fetish object Matthew McConaughey finally made his first appearance in a shirtless paparazzi shot. Oddly, poor Teresa Strasser was made to read what was an apparently some kind of coded message signaling that McConaughey is gay:

“Adonis-chested Matthew McConaughey blew a fan…”

(long pause)

“...off last night…”

The line “Matthew McConaughey blew a fan” was definitely left hanging there, deliberately, long enough to get our attention-- and to have us think for a moment that he'd actually favored some lucky fan with oral gratification! Was that an in-joke among Harvey, Jim, Paul and the boys? Or did Teresa and Carolla's other boss, Jimmy Kimmel, give her the line reading?

Who cares? No one else noticed, apparently. And to be honest, we stopped there. After fast-forwarding through a lot of Episode 1, we didn’t even make it to the second quarter of Show 2, let alone Show 3. Everything we needed to know about TMZ the TV show was in that first 35 minutes or so. As it stands, the show is Harvey’s ego trip, and the gay meter is blowing… its top. Expect big changes ahead. Expect Ben to be gone. Expect a Rachel Dratch-Jane Krakowski-style female talent switch, and expect Harvey Levin to be shunted to the sidelines, Mike Walker-style, for his own good.

The stain of TMZ.com has spread indelibly across the Internet. TMZ the TV show is already irrelevant. Right now, it would fit in well at 11 pm on E! or the TV Guide channel and get that expected audience. But in the mainstream syndicated television market, it’s already time to count the little Harvey heads to cancellation.

Unfair & Cheap! Union targets Harvey & TMZ TV

TMZ TV, the camp and irrelevant broadcast version of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, may not be doing well in the ratings, but it is making a mark in the television industry-- as a union buster!

The series from the megamonolith AOL/Time-Warner has been blacklisted by AFTRA, the union that represents on-air television talent on all legitimate infotainment shows, because Harvey Levin and the other producers won't sign the talent to standard union contracts-- a practice that is highly irregular for a show of TMZ's stature, and undermines the TV industry as a whole:

URGENT!
NO CONTRACT, NO WORK Order in Effect for ‘TMZ’
Effective September 20, 2007, members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists are advised that TMZ Productions Inc., Harvey Levin Productions Inc., and paraMedia inc.— producers of the syndicated TV series “TMZ”— are not signed to an AFTRA contract covering this program. AFTRA members may NOT accept employment, including recording in-show and/or promotional announcements, on “TMZ” until and unless a fair contract between AFTRA and the producers is achieved. If you are contacted for employment on “TMZ”, please contact Joan Halpern Weise, Assistant National Executive Director, at 323-634-8174 (jweise@aftra.com) or David Besbris, Los Angeles Local Director of Television, 323-643-8116 (dbesbris@aftra.com). All calls are confidential.

Well, now we know why the TMZ TV show didn't hire any experienced on-air reporters or hosts-- and have an idea why the bigshots moved the TMZ offices way from the corporate headquarters to a space on the Sunset Strip-- not so the show could be closer to the celebutard nightclub scene and West Hollywood gyms, but to keep it off the premises of Extra, the union-abiding parent show.

The seamy TMZ website left its stain by hiring young boys with consumer cameras to do the work of professional cameraman. And on TV, the story has been the same-- the majority of the in-house faces seen on the TV show (at least when when we last watched-- seriously, we blew it off in the first quarter of the second episode) are those very young, pretty-boy twinks. But apparently, even the young cohosts of "main on-air personality" Harvey are not working under an AFTRA contract. It's unheard of in mainstream syndicated big-money corporate television-- and in the case of leftist Hollywood scion Ben Mankiewicz (above), very surprising.

One of our readers reminds us that it's also more than a little hypocritical, after TMZ criticized the singer Beyonce earlier this year:

Dancing for Beyonce Is No Dream, Girl

TMZ has learned that dancers working on Beyonce's latest videos are being low-balled on their salaries in order to make the videos on the cheap.

Sources tell TMZ that the music diva is shooting several music videos in L.A. this week, which we're told she is financing, not her label. Sources also say Beyonce's choreographer, Frank Gatson, has refused to work with any of the dancers' agents on this job.

We're told that by eliminating the middleman and dealing directly with the dancers, Beyonce can pay them below standard wages. Industry contacts say this practice is highly irregular for an artist of Beyonce's stature, and it undermines the dance industry as a whole...

The AFTRA mandate means that all members of AFTRA-- and that means every experienced pro int he business-- are prohibited from working for TMZ, which soon enough will be loking for fresh meat to replace Ben and the other "personalities"-- including Harvey himself.

(Watch for the picketers standing outside nightclubs alongside the TMZ cameraboys...)

TMZ BACKLASH SPREADS!

There’s uproar behind the scenes of the televised version of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ, in wake of a grassroots uprising in response to recent criticism of the site’s sleazy, nasty and confrontational tactics.

Recent headlines on the TMZ gossip site would indicate that TMZ frontman Harvey Levin and his kiddie staff are moving full speed ahead with their crude, unwitty and unschooled style:

George Michael Starts Servicing the Community

Richie's Baby Daddy -- Get the F**k Outta the Way!

Ivanka Gets Stuff'd

Estella Warren's Piece

Kim K – I'm Just a Flat-Assed Waif!

And recent TMZ posts, including an inexplicable, out-of-the-blue physical comparison of Disney star Orlando Bloom to the late porn actor John Holmes (left) this morning, would indicate that Harvey and his gaggle are deliberately and aggressively thumbing their noses at public opinion.

But as the debut of the latest syndicated celebucentricinfotainment show approaches, sources tell us that recent TMZ TV recruits are "freaking out"— and not only because untelegenic Harvey is itching to host. From staffers including producer Bryn Friedman, a “mainstream” news veteran with no tabloid experience, to tabloid TV pioneer (Hard Copy) Paul Nichols, who may be joining the show as director, there is real concern that the website’s popper-reckless, tweaking-angry and toy boy-amateurish stalkerazzi tactics are leading the show on a Lohan-style collision course. (Update: Bryn was fired last week.)

The line was drawn yesterday, in the hours after TMZ's baiting of and cyber attack upon gentle giant Brad Garrett, when respected and distinguished Hollywood Reporter columnist Ray Richmond called TMZ “The AntiChrist”, a “toxic, tactless, classless, unctuous, sleazy and extreme attack-dog slice of cyberspace, backed by boatloads of AOL/Time Warner corporate cash, that’s singlehandedly slicing a dagger through whatever credibility entertainment journalism had remaining and ruining things for those who are at least fighting to retain a measure of taste and sensitivity.”

And readers have responded.

Here’s sampling of comment responses to columns by Tabloid Baby, Ray and TV critic David Kronke:

This leaking stench from TMZ's sewer is elevating villains and addicts to HERO status, all for profit. In time it's going to make the high school degree look like a relic of the past. Why bother when self indulgence and lack of values brings fame, adulation and the big payday? Glad that Burt and Ray are putting this out for discussion...

…Tacky. There also seems to be a lot of anger and disgust even among TMZ's own readers (!), if you noticed a lot of the comments to this posting on their site. Some people stuck up for TMZ, saying, "Hey, Merv had a wicked sense of humor - he would have thought it was funny..." Well, perhaps, if they would have done it in slightly better taste. Besides, when did the all-knowing staff of TMZ (likely too young and clueless to even grasp the contributions or significance or pure wonderfulness of Merv) have such an "inside read" on Merv's sense of humor? Give me a break... As someone so aptly put it, "maybe TMZ shouldn't give their 'weekend guys' so much creative control... TMZ, here's a new message for your board: TMZ IS DEAD TO ME…

The great vulnerability of TMZ is also its greatest strength: it is Time Warner, and Time Warner is a nice fat target…

They're trying to compete with a guy who (allegedly) uses agency photos without payment or permission, and then (not-so) allegedly draws coke boogers in celebrities' nostrils and semen running out of their mouths. Meanwhile, what of the long-delayed TMZ D.C., and what will it be like? Will Beltway stalkerazzi be positioned outside Capitol Hill watering holes, trying to provoke Olympia Snowe or Russ Feingold into throwing a haymaker at the camera? I'd love to hear Harvey Levin's vision for the thing.

There is real media out there, but they are drowned out by the cheap and easy thrills of shoving a camera into someone's face and watching what they do. Any normal person would have handed the camera operator (or whoever made the comment) their ass and it wouldn't have been an issue. But because its a celebrity (or in this case, Brad Garrett) it somehow means more...

We've watched as tabloid television devolved from something truly revolutionary and funny-- a cultural and political force-- to a corrupt, celeb-kissing, product-pushing, epileptic fit-inducing irrelevant waste of airtime. If he really wants to succeed, Harvey should take the advice from people who know: the audience.

And the audience is speaking.

Stay tuned...

Hollywood outrage as Harvey Levin and TMZ use Carradine hanging photo as an excuse to give kids a step-by-step manual to auto-erotic asphyxiation

We've got to hand it to the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, trumpeting that they're taking some kind of high road by not re-posting today's Thai newspaper photo that allegedly shows David Carradine's naked dead body hanging in the closet of his hotel room, while publishing in its stead something a thousand times more reprehensible, sick and perverted:

An obviously first-hand, step-by-step guide
to auto-erotic asphyxiation!

Who does Harvey Levin think he's fooling? With their marketing and promotion of "celebrity" sex videos featuring scatology and urination to their Hollywood-hating confrontational tactics, TMZ's shaved bronzed midget frontman and his creepy harem of adoring rentboys have been trying for years to inject their amoral, sleazy and septic practices into the mainstream pop culture.

This latest assault can't be blamed on the weekend crew. While the Saturday-Sunday TMZ benchwarmers have been historically and often hysterically clueless on the tabloid journalism and propriety fronts, but though they manage to misspell Carradine's name in one of today's posts (above), it's obvious that it wasn't an hourly-wage mook but an elder veteran of bizarre, perverted sex practices who came to work on a weekend to drool over the Carradine snuff photo and give it his own self-abusive analysis:

"...if this is truly a case of auto-erotica, typically people who do this will put a cloth or something between the neck and the skin to avoid marks that would be difficult to explain. There's a picture that was published in a Thai newspaper showing the body hanging. We will not publish it, but we do not see evidence of anything between the neck and rope...

"...if this is truly a case of auto-erotica, generally there would be a magazine, video or something of a sexual nature within eyeshot to stimulate arousal...

"Also -- the notion behind auto-erotica is that oxygen is restricted to heighten orgasm, but the subject generally has a ladder, stool or something like it to restore oxygen..."

Thanks for the helpful tips, Harvey. You might even convince a lonely teenager to give it a try-- especially after you added a little more spice later in the day:

"...the new sharper image also reveals what appears to be fishnet stockings covering the body. You can also see red women's lingerie on the bed."

These outrageous, sick and attention-grabbing posts likely were concocted after the corporate overlords at Time Warner and AOL ordered that the Carradine photo not be posted, and come at a time when, through its own lack of judgment and morality, and faced with paid competition, TMZ has become increasingly irrelevant. Last week, the newcomer Hollywood Rumor Rat posted:

"It seems Radar Online is really jamming things up for... TMZ.com... For its first couple of years as an online entity, TMZ had a lock on gossipy exclusives... These days, TMZ seems to have been relegated to reporting items generated by public relations press releases...

"If TMZ doesn't step things up, it could soon disappear from the Hollywood radar."

The entrance of the National Enquirer's paid professional tabloid team under the cloak of RadarOnline has pulled TMZ's pants down to its spray-tanned ankles and exposed its shaved, bronzed shortcomings. TV attorney Harvey Levin can't compete with an Enquirer team schooled in the all-important nuances that are so important to the tabloid trade, like recognizing heroes from villains. (Harvey Levin and TMZ chased, hounded and mocked the disturbed woman who gave birth to eight children. RadarOnline gave her a video journal.)

TMZ's packs of street trade thugs, hanging outside hotspots with home video cameras to taunt celebrities, are no longer seen as a threats, but laughed at as clueless morons paid pennies to risk arrest. Someone up above even put a stop to the website's heartless puerile jokes about celebrity deaths. TMZ's irrelevance is the main reason we've stopped writing about them.

Look at TMZ today: Afraid to run police evidence photos, falling back on their private games.

Looks like TMZ is, well, hanging itself!

TMZ's Jacko death "scoop" was an educated guess and heartless gamble that paid off

The corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com has gotten credit by its mainstream colleagues-- the ones who often use the sewer site as a legitimate news source-- for breaking the news that Michael Jackson was dead. However, TabloidBaby.com's investigation and common sense analysis of the situation makes it very clear that TMZ was ahead of the curve because they took the same reports everyone else had and extrapolated from them that Jackson had died.

In other words, TMZ's shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin and his ill-wishing celebrity taunt team closed their eyes, put all their money on the number 86 and held on tight until they found out they were correct.

In other words, they guessed.

Sound like a conspiracy theory? Speaking of conspiracy theories, there's precedent in network news and one of the greatest conspiracy theories of our time.

Let's go back to yesterday afternoon...

Word that Michael Jackson had been rushed to a hospital in full cardiac arrest was a shocker when it was text-messaged to us yesterday afternoon shortly after 2 pm. More shocking was the headline that appeared on the Drudge Report, stamped at 1:43 p.m. Pacific Standard Time:

2009/06/25 Thu 16:43:04 EST ^ (21:43:04 GMT)
REPORT: Michael Jackson Dies


The Drudge headline linked to TMZ.com, which at 1:30 PM PST had run the post:

Michael Jackson -- Cardiac Arrest



Two minutes later, Drudge switched to Code Red and all caps in a red headline accompanied by his flashing police light:

2009/06/25 Thu 16:45:05 EST ^ (21:45:05 GMT)
REPORT: MICHAEL JACKSON DIES.


Again, a link to TMZ.

Meanwhile, other news organizations were reporting that Jackson had been taken to UCLA Medical Center in full cardiac arrest-- but no one would say he was dead. There were reports he was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his home, and other reports that the paramedics were performing CPR in the ambulance. All signs pointing to a dead celebrity-- but no confirmation.

By 2:20 PST, TMZ was reporting:

Michael Jackson Dies


That, although Jackson was not officially pronounced dead until 2:26 p.m.

Even after 2:30 pm, The Los Angeles Times website and CNN were reporting that Jackson was hospitalized in a "deep coma."

Soon, the death was confirmed.

Despite the time stamp and the Drudge links, the Los Angeles Times reports today that TMZ beat the lamestream news media by only a few minutes:

"At 2:44 p.m., it beat rivals by informing the world of his death, which occurred at 2:26 p.m. ...Yet the tabloid sensibilities of the site, which is owned and operated by divisions of Time Warner, and its accompanying syndicated TV show apparently made rivals queasy. Many outlets around the world instead credited the news to the Los Angeles Times, which bannered Jackson's death on its website at 2:51 p.m."
The news hit Drudge after 3 p.m.

2009/06/25 Thu 17:07:16 EST ^ (22:07:16 GMT)

THE KING IS DEAD


While all this was going on, as the confusion reigned for more than thirty minutes, the tabloid veterans monitoring the coverage on the Internet and television simultaneously came to the same conclusion: TMZ.com did not get the scoop because its band of boys has better sources, paid sources or inside information at the notoriously-leaky hospital than their competitors.

TMZ had the same information everyone else had.

TMZ went with the death report on a hunch, figuring the odds were in their favor.

Remember, they had this information to go on:

Jacko had been hospitalized with cardiac arrest;

Jacko was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his home;

Paramedics were performing CPR on the way to the hospital.

Based on those reports, the tabloid television veterans monitoring the situation also assumed Jackson was dead. TMZ, however, went with the news.

Harvey Levin will claim it was great reporting and inside sources that gave TMZ the edge, but take our word for it: TMZ.com had the same sources as everyone else. And no one else accepted TMZ as a source and went with the story because they knew the game. Even TMZ's sister network CNN didn't take their word for it because they know the imitation tabloid television game Harvey was playing.

Harvey, who has a history of imitating other people's tabloid strategies, often to disastrous results (see the OJ Simpson trial), was playing Dan Rather.


On November 22, 1963, CBS News reporter Dan Rather was the first to report the death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy after he was shot in Dallas, after hearing an unconfirmed report from a priest. The news went out, and Rather, knowing he could be wrong, prayed that he was right and that JFK was dead, so he wouldn't be fired (he writes about it in his book).

Harvey Levin lucked out.

TMZ's Harvey Levin is queried and probed and poses in heterosexual men's sex magazine

We'd assume there would be little chance of finding a Playboy magazine in the home of Harvey Levin, the shaved bronzed midget frontman of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com and its inconsequential whitewashed syndicated television version. Of course, Harvey’s got his own bunny hutch in his West Hollywood office aerie, but Harvey’s bunnies have balls.

But now the old men’s mag, which has strained its back muscles dipping into the celebutard scene of late, is featuring the prominent appreciator of the male form (see: Matthew McConaughey) in the 20 Questions section of its June issue, which is out today and would make the angry jealous gossip queen the one man in America telling the truth when he claims to read Playboy for the articles.

Playboy’s publicists were kind enough to send us an advance copy, because “we know you have covered Harvey Levin of TMZ before.” Yes we have. Of the twenty questions, two provoke answers that are the most chilling, journalismwise. One is a sad fact that we’ve pointed out: that the “mainstream" news media lazily cite the subliterate celebbaiters as a legitimate news source:

"When we started, two and a half years ago, there was a feeling that nobody except National Enquirer covered this material, and the national media turned up their nose at us. Now you're in trouble if you don't cover it. We play a little game in our office sometimes when we post a big story. We bet on how soon it will take CNN to flash 'TMZ is reporting...' across the bottom of the screen. Often it's a matter of seconds.”

The other worry is where Harvey is next setting his sights:

"I see huge opportunities in covering politics in a way that would be interesting and fun for people. People say you can't make politicians as interesting as Hollywood celebrities, because they're not as good-looking, not as well-known, not as entertaining. I totally disagree. These are some of the most interesting people in the country, and they haven't been covered that way before."

By the way, a reader recently asked about those male torsos featured on this and some of our other recent TMZ-related posts: they’re not of Harvey (Playboy sent us a clothed shot from the magazine, but wanted us to sign a release form to post it), but the corporate-porn-pushing equivalent of the old TV news “headshot.” These are Harvey’s on-air toyboys, the ones who point home video cameras in people’s faces and then report to Harvey about the confrontations on the TMZ TV show. Photographs like these are posted by the boys themselves on their MySpace and other public websites in order to promote their careers and themselves.

We’ll leave it to you to put faces to the bodies. And to send us more.

Heil, Harvey! (Oops. TMZ did it again!)

Leave it to the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com to ruin somebody’s Christmas and reputation, only squirm away from responsibility on its own oily snailtrail. And leave it to frontman Harvey Levin to expose himself by revealing that he and his boys in their West Hollywood garret still have a thing or two to learn about Hollywood, tabloid and Jews.

It all began on the afternoon of Christmas Eve when Harvey's web team blew out the office candles after leaving a smelly package on the Internet doorstep, headlined:

Will Smith -- Hitler, Schmitler;
He Wasn't That Bad

The story (we can't find the exact verbiage—it’s been changed several times in the past day and a half) claimed “a leading Jewish group is kvetching loudly about Will Smith's recent suggestion that Adolf Hitler wasn't all bad.”

The leading Jewish group? The JDL. As in Jewish Defense League, the extreme militant group that in the past has been criticized by the real leading Jewish group, the Anti-Defamation League— the ADL-- for presenting a "gross distortion" of the real situation of American Jews. Put it this way: calling the JDL a "a leading Jewish group" is the equivalent of a major news organization citing TMZ as a serious news source.

(beat)

Oh.

And of course the JDL statement wouldn’t have gotten much traction or attention if not for TMZ’s exuberance in branding Will Smith the new Mel Gibson. And that's where TMZ went very wrong. They didn’t have Will saying anything about Hitler on tape. One of the TMZ thugs with a home video camera didn’t goad Will into saying something stupid as he stumbled out of a Hollywood nightspot (remember Chelsea Handler).

No, the quote is attributed to “a Scottish paper.”

Harvey, listen up.

First rule of tabloid: Never cite a British— especially not a Scottish (or Irish-- see Tiger Woods) tabloid— as a source when setting out to smear anyone's hardwon reputation (let alone the star of the #1 movie). In this case, the Daily Record article didn’t even make hay out of the the alleged quote. It was buried in the final graphs:

Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good.

"Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today'," said Will. "I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good'. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming.

"I wake up every day full of hope, positive that every day is going to be better than yesterday. And I'm looking to infect people with my positivity. I think I can start an epidemic."

That's the quote-- if you believe the quote is accurate. And today, Smith's people are apparently disputing that, but too late, because TMZ's already infected the media and started a TMZ-positive epidemic.

And, as usual, the morning, as TMZ’s corporate overlords awaken from their holiday to see that the weekend crew has gone and done it again, harming clients from other tentacles of the megaconglomerate, Harvey’s cowardly idiots are in full, vulgar, backtrack mode:

Will Smith -- Reporters Just Don't Understand

Will Smith is slamming a Scottish paper -- after one of its reporters twisted a quote he gave about Adolf Hitler in an interview -- and kicked up an unnecessary Internet s**tstorm.



Smith called the The Daily Record's quote "an awful and disgusting lie," and through his rep said he is "incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such a ludicrous misinterpretation. Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on his planet." Men in backtrack!



But the best line is saved for last. After kicking up its own “unnecessary s**tstorm,” TMZ is finally doing its reportorial diligence— picking up the phone to confirm the story before going with it:

TMZ called the Daily Record, and we're trying to reach the reporter, Siobhan Synnot, whose byline is on the offending article, but haven't heard back.

We'll see how this plays out.

In any case, it’s a fitting way to wrap up a year in which TMZ turned Hollywood tabloid into a slimy, ugly and irresponsible attack game that’s played for blood on the Internet and whitewashed into partyboy giggly irrelevance in the TV version that the corporate bosses get to see.

Hard to believe that only a year or so ago, it seemed that Nick Denton’s Defamer site was redefining the form into something witty and smart, with well-written inside dirt from assistants and other disgruntled Hollywood underlings. But in 2007, Defamer slid into laziness (perhaps a result of Denton’s penurious payment policies or pharmaceuticals), devolving into little more than a forum for young gay slackers who sit on their couch all day watching The View, Oprah and Ellen and picking up the laptop during commercials to regurgitate the campest moments.

Oh well. We're still here. And watching. Harvey.

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...

Tabloid Baby's 2007 Journalist of the Year

Our awards season moves forward with what's sure to be a controversial decision... not even Our Man Elli in Israel can claim the influence of a short, 57-year-old attorney who ought to know better, Tabloid Baby's 2007...

JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR
Harvey Levin

Time Magazine has their Vladimir Putin. We have Harvey Levin, the bronzed, buffed and boy-buffered figurehead and queen of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, the most noxious news operation on the Internet and its recent syndicated television spin-off, the whitewashed, inconsequential, soul-sucking, corrupt half hour of daily infotainment built around the phony “newsroom” interaction between Levin’s Mr. Chips and his stable of fawning young pretty boys who run off to do his bidding, which is getting in the faces of Hollywood folk as they go about their daily business, with little regard for consequence or perspective .

As our esteemed pal Ray Richmond at The Hollywood Reporter wrote in August on his essential Past Deadline site:

"TMZ is the Antichrist... toxic and tactless... classless... (an) attack-dog corner of cyberspace... backed by boatloads of AOL/Time Warner corporate cash... so unctuous, sleazy and extreme that it's singlehandedly slicing a dagger through whatever credibility entertainment journalism had remaining. It's ruining things for those who are at least fighting to retain a measure of taste and sensitivity, as boss Harvey Levin and his TMZ possess none."

Despite-- and because of-- his crimes, Harvey Levin deserves the title of Tabloid Baby’s Journalist of The Year, and not only because he’s given us so much to write about these past twelve months. Put it this way: who did more damage to entertainment reporting in 2007 than Harvey Levin? In 2007, he and his gutter operation did indeed wield that dagger and in the process almost singlehandedly transformed Hollywood entertainment reporting into a gutter-level street battle fueled by self-hatred, jealousy and anger, with no concern for what once determined greatness, excellence or fame, and in the process, overwhelming the fine reportage of Nikki Finke and Ray Richmond, while sending the Defamer crowd into hiding.

Some credit for Levin’s “rise” must be given to his former executive producer and BFF, Lisa Gregorish, who at the TelePictures mother show, Extra!, cultivated a brawny camp cult following on camera and behind the scenes and, before their Collins-Evans falling out, allowed Levin to branch off, actually establish an office in West Hollywood upstairs from a gym, and water his own crop of wide-eyed boytoys who are the real stars of a sordid series whose ostensible on-air personalities are a bunch of plug-uglies cut from Levin's pre-fab-makeover mold.

Stripped of any moral compass, fueled by crude, vulgar, witless, often disgusting writing, with no regard for fairplay, history, truth, justice or the American way, the cowardly TMZ operation is the apotheosis of Bush-era Hollywood, run as a division by corporate monoliths and concerned only with the bottom line. And as TMZ distracts America from important issues (like war, the writers strike, studio failures and television's ideas crisis) with its frenzied pursuit of unstable young women, it has the lazy “mainstream” news media to thank for welcoming it as a legitimate news source despite its obvious deceptions and lies about its tactics and practices (hey, Harvey's even got the New York Times on his side!).

Harvey, meanwhile, can thank his lucky stars that in 2007, no one was killed in TMZ’s irresponsible line of duty. Unless, of course, you count David Hans Schmidt, the celebrity porn broker who was TMZ.com’s partner in porn-pushing, until his mysterious “suicide” a couple of weeks after TMZ TV’s premiere.

We're not through yet. Stay tuned for Tabloid Baby's 2007 Person of The Year...

Meet Harvey Levin's TMZ TV costars

Get a load of these mugs!

These are the faces of the TMZ TV series. As expected, and as we reported, TMZ editor, former local TV news reporter, host search committee leader and TV show "executive producer" Harvey Levin has managed to insert himself into the on-air mix as "Main on-air personality." He's done a clever job by picking younger co-stars who are as plug-ugly as himself-- and with "newsy" backgrounds that distance the TV show from the sleazy corporate porn-pushing gossip site it will elevate.

But Ben Mankiewicz, Teresa Strasser and Katie Daryl, seen above, (along with "TMZ.com staffer" Michael Hundgen, whose work can be seen here) could also be trouble-- and not only because they're more suited to radio or cable than syndicated television. Harvey and the TMZ TV minds seem to be equating plain and non-flashy appearances with real tabloid authority. This group might look the part, but whether they bring any tabloid legitimacy to the table is another story altogether. In the end, there's no Arthel Neville, no Doug Bruckner-- no one who knows the territory, only younger faces that match the decor.

Ben's a leftie with intellectual pretensions, Teresa's an Adam Carolla strawlady with smartypants showbiz pretensions, and Katie-- well, we don't know who the hell Katie is, except they're pushing her role on an MTV politics special.

Ben is the kid brother of NBC Dateline's tabloid reporter Josh Mankiewicz, and the host of a liberal morning talk radio show on Air America.

He also hosts a cartoon show on the Turner Classic Movies channel-- and comes from a line of Hollywood royalty, being the grandson of famed screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz and great-nephew of screenwriter, producer and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. How does the family of writers react to TMZ.com's cheap, smarmy way with words?

Teresa is one of the girls from the Jimmy Kimmel camp, inserted into the execrable Carolla radio show as the sexless "Jewish" (their word) newsreader who's rebelled by generating sparks with cohost and show stealer Danny Bonaduce. She soaks in the lunkhead lowbrow humour that TMZ and Carolla's show share, but fancies herself a wit.

And Katie (below)? Well, she looks like Harvey's idea of the sexy blonde. Get the 13-week clock ready.


(Meanwhile, Page Six reports that "after the co-executive producer Bryn Friedman was canned last week, rumors started swirling that the start-up program could be in trouble. 'Bryn was the scapegoat of a riff between the executive producers, Harvey Levin and Jim Paratore,' our spy said. 'They've been fighting because there is no show and no set and the launch is just weeks away. 'But Levin told us, "I don't know what you're talking about - the set is the newsroom and I love Jim, he's like my brother! And while I'm on the show, there is an ensemble cast. It is different than a traditional magazine show."' As for Friedman? 'I like Bryn. I'm not going to discuss (firing her).' Friedman... has been in touch with celebrity lawyer Marty Singer..."

(Losing a "mainstream," "straight news" veteran like Friedman (we told you a few days ago about her misgivings) is a real blow for Harvey's quest for credibility. And his lies about the circumstances surrounding the show's troubled start-up don't bode well for expectations of candor and legitimacy for TMZ TV. )