TMZ descends on Washington in a test of whether tabloid tactics can serve the public interest |
Headlines on sex, drugs, sports and divorce always attract eyeballs. In fact, the entire tabloid industry has been built on the public’s hunger for scandal and schadenfreude.
TMZ is no exception. Through the years, it has become the go-to source for celebrity gossip, salacious affairs and public meltdowns.
So what to make of TMZ’s decision to recently launch a Washington bureau – TMZ DC – to cover the Beltway’s feuds, scandals and power struggles?
While some congressional staffers have been apprehensive about this new venture, I’m excited to see how it plays out. I’ve studied and written about how aspects of TMZ’s business model and audience engagement tactics can be replicated by local media to serve the public good.
Now that the outlet is setting its sights on the nation’s political actors, there will be an opportunity to see whether its controversial methods translate into holding those in power to account.
You are now entering the ‘thirty mile zone’
Celebrity journalism had been around since the creation of 18th-century scandal sheets, which published gossip about European aristocrats, royals and political elites. In the 19th century, the penny press emerged in the U.S. – cheap newspapers that competed for the public’s attention by running articles detailing crimes, scandals and lurid accounts of city life. Newspaper publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer supercharged this approach through what became known as “yellow journalism,” a sensational, emotionally charged style of reporting that flourished in the late 1800s.
TMZ repackaged this model for the digital age.
After a three-year stint as host of the syndicated TV show “Celebrity Justice,” Harvey Levin founded TMZ in 2005 with backing from Warner Bros. The name is a nod to Hollywood’s “thirty mile zone” – the roughly 30-mile radius around Hollywood that the........