Once found only in supermarket tabloids, gossip has found a place
in mainstream media outlets. David Ward examines the symbiotic
relationship gossip columnists have with PR pros.
Somewhat lost amid the coverage following the September 11 terrorist
attacks was a celebrity rumor that singer/actress Whitney Houston had
died, either in the attacks or by other means. This gossip spread under
the media radar for several days before finally surfacing on radio
programs and in internet chat rooms. Eventually, Houston's publicist was
forced to issue a strong denial of what was reported in many
newspapers.
Gossip, whether passed around the office or across the globe, has been
around as long as civilization itself, and gossip writers have been
putting items in print since the means to do so were invented. The job
of the gossip media is not only to pass along what tidbits of
information they do uncover, but also to separate fact from fiction,
often with little to go on other than a single source and some gut
instinct.
"I think that gossip is much harder reporting than news," says Jeannette
Walls, author and gossip columnist for MSNBC.com. "It's much tougher to
check stories, so you have to judge the credibility of your source, and
very often you're going to get denials."
While there's been an explosion of gossip on business and politics,
traditionally, the craft has been focused on showbiz celebrities.
"Columnists like Liz Smith love the celebrity hook, and it's good to
know which celebrities they adore," says Julie Dennehy, president of
Boston-based Dennehy Public Relations. "You have to read all the
columnists regularly to find out which ones they're partial to."
Dennehy also stresses that unlike hard news, gossip writers are very
subjective - not just with the items they report, but also with the
sources they use. A great rapport between a PR person and gossip
columnist can make the difference in not only whether a client is
mentioned, but in some cases, the tone of the coverage. "I try to
respond to them immediately when they call with a request because that
really helps to build a relationship," she says. "It's very helpful if
you can deliver when they ask you to get them a photo on short
notice."
In fact, the link between PR and the gossip media is so strong, there is
some debate over exactly how much gossip writing is actually spoon-fed
from publicists, and how much is the result of hard reporting. While
Walls says that she only occasionally gets successfully pitched by PR
firms, PR pros insist that the bulk of the items that appear in gossip
columns are put there by agencies.
That is especially true in major media markets. "Their job is to get to
know you as well, so they do tend to go out a lot, and are very
approachable," says Susan MacTavish Best of San Francisco-based Best
PR.
The army behind the writer
By and large, the bigger the gossip columnist, the larger the staff
behind them. With top gossip columnists, PR professionals say they end
up dealing exclusively with a writer's assistants, whose jobs consist of
filtering calls, evaluating tips, and routinely contacting concierges
and maitre d's to find out who's checked in or dined out where. But that
can vary depending on the media outlet and the journalist. "Liz Smith is
a great example," says Dean Mastrojohn, senior account executive with
The MWW Group. "She's got a huge staff behind her. I've never spoken to
her directly, but I've spoken many times to her people. On the other
hand, Richard Johnson, who writes (the New York Post's) Page Six, I've
spoken to many times directly."
Nicholas Wolaver, account executive with Atlanta-based The Headline
Group, says that most cities have numerous opportunities for placing
items around his area. He points to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's
Peach Buzz column as a good example of a regional column, combining
tidbits of information about Atlanta events with national
celebrity-oriented wire stories that are localized whenever possible.
"Sometimes the paper can't dedicate a full story to an event, but they
do see some newsworthiness to it, and this is where they fit it in,"
Wolaver says. "Jane Fonda is a local celebrity in Atlanta, and any time
one of her charities does something, Peach Buzz is where it's going to
appear."
But pitching gossip writers can be a tricky business. Bob Rinklin,
managing director of the New Jersey-based Bender-Hammerling Group, says,
"They really don't want to be one of 20 people that get the item. You
also want to give them the ability to personalize it if they can. If you
look at columnists like Cindy Adams and Liz Smith, they try to create
the sense that they just picked up the phone and there was Liz Taylor on
the other end telling them something."
Bender-Hammerling recently placed an item with Smith on behalf of the
website Genealogy.com that traced Academy Award-winning actor William
Holden's lineage back to George Washington. The piece, which mentioned
Genealogy.com by name, was picked up by numerous papers that carry
Smith's column, including Newsday, the New York Post, and the San
Francisco Chronicle.
"Genealogy.com was very impressed that Liz mentioned their company in
her column," says Rinklin. "They're always interested in getting off the
genealogy and personal technology pages and into other sections, and
they have done so a couple of times by doing these family trees of
celebrities."
While no one has the clout that Hedda Hopper, Luella Parsons, and Walter
Winchell had in their day, columnists such as Smith, Walls, Johnson,
Adams, Jeannie Williams, Neal Travis, and syndicated writers George Rush
and Joanna Malloy do command a national presence. Joining them are
several newcomers who focus on a younger club-centric gossip scene in
various cities, including Heidi Siegmund Cuda of the Los Angeles Times
and Hayley Kaufman of The Boston Globe's Go! column.
Gossip spreads its wings
In the past few years, gossip journalism has leapt off the lifestyle
pages and into the business, technology, and even the political
sections, and some of the credit for this can be tied to the rise of the
internet.
"The definition of what is gossip and what is news has gotten very
fluid," notes Walls. "Monica Lewinsky is an example of a gossip item out
of control that ate up the entire news section."
Business gossip was once limited to news in The Wall Street Journal's
Heard on the Street column, but that segment has expanded with the
internet.
Now, in addition to business gossip reporters such as the New York
Post's Chris Nolan, there are websites such as FuckedCompany.com and
Fatbabies.
com. Sites such as these are usually run by only a handful of people who
lack both the resources and the inclination to check out each and every
anonymous tip that's sent in. The same goes for political gossip, where
a site such as The Drudge Report continues to have a following, despite
some egregious errors that have resulted in libel action.
"(The sources) are often people with access to information - but not
necessarily the whole story. They are posting what they hear in the
restroom or the hallways," notes Bill Linn, president of Linn PR. The
problem, Linn says, is that a client has little control over what's
being said about them or its impact. "I have clients that are publicly
traded who are telling me this analyst just read something about them on
Fatbabies," he says.
As tempting as it can be to try to contact the offending site and set
the record straight, most PR professionals say the best course of action
is to simply monitor what's being said. "We absolutely, in all cases,
advise our clients not to respond," Linn says. "The way to give the site
credibility is to respond to it."
WHERE TO GO
NEWSPAPERS: USA Today; New York Post; New York Daily News; The Boston
Globe; Boston Herald; Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Los Angeles Times;
San Francisco Chronicle; The Wall Street Journal
MAGAZINES: People; Star!; Entertainment Weekly; The National Enquirer;
Vanity Fair; Interview; Premiere; Time; Newsweek; New York; Los Angeles;
TV Guide; Hollywood Reporter; Variety; Jezebel
TV & RADIO: Larry King Live; Extra; Entertainment Tonight; Access
Hollywood; E! Entertainment Network; CNN Entertainment News
INTERNET: IMDB.com; CNN.com; MSNBC.com; Jim Romenesko's Mediagossip.com
(at poynter.org/ medianews); FuckedCompany.com; Fatbabies.com;
Inside.com; The Drudge Report; Ted Casablanca's The Awful Truth (at
eonline.com/gossip)
