Once it was the preserve of glossy gossip magazines one could choose not to buy. But these days – thanks to the internet and social media – it’s everywhere.
I’m referring to the endless speculative prattle about who in the world of celebrity is dating whom, who is getting married or divorced, and who seems to have a “baby bump”.
It wasn’t always thus. I’ve spent more than half of my career in journalism as an entertainment writer and editor, and – believe it or not – you can often get a decent story by actually speaking to famous people. It was always my belief that the film stars and musicians I interviewed might have something of substance to say, and that I should give them a chance to say it.
To be sure, I was often proven wrong. Some celebrities are profoundly stupid and some refuse to answer certain questions. I guess that’s where the gossip starts to take root. Newspaper editors, like nature, abhor a vacuum, so trivia started to fill the space reserved for real stories.
But what deserves to be published and what should be left to one side? Even experienced journalists find it difficult to separate the prurient from matters of genuine public interest.
When I had a telephone interview with actor Tom Arnold about his role in the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger film True Lies, there was a lot of media speculation about his recent separation from Roseanne Barr, the star of the hit sitcom Roseanne.
To me, it was a legitimate journalistic exercise to ask Arnold for his version of a very public story. However, the film publicist warned me that the actor would not tolerate questions about his private life and would terminate the interview if I brought the matter up. Fine, I thought, that will be the last question I ask.
But when I was put through to Arnold, the conversation went something like this:
“Hi Tom, how’s it going?”
“Hi Brett, things are great since I got rid of that [expletive referring to his ex-wife] ...”
And so I had my story straight from the horse’s mouth.
Yet many celebrity stories have no source at all or include quotes from an unnamed “friend” of the person involved. I don’t want to shock you but, very often, that is code for “we made this up”.
An Australian television programme with the self-explanatory title of Media Watch recently investigated the dramatically declining circulations of what used to be lumped together as "women's magazines".
The show’s researchers focused on articles in the glossies about actors Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Aniston, and former tennis player Lleyton Hewitt and his wife Bec.
Story after story in the magazines declared Aniston or Kidman pregnant, sometimes with twins, while others declared the Hewitts separated or divorced – or having another baby. Not one of more than a dozen stories with huge, categorical headlines – such as “Yes! She’s Pregnant”, “Our Miracle Baby!” and “Pregnant at 48!” – was true.
Moreover, the people who wrote the articles and published them must have known that the stories were not true.
Media analyst Steve Allen told Media Watch: "Many readers know it is made up, but as long as it is entertaining, as long as it titillates, they don't care."
So, there you have it. And, as the television show rightly concludes, there you also have a probable reason for the decline in these magazines’ circulations – in one case, a year on year drop of 24.5 per cent. The readers either have no further appetite for invented gossip, or (more likely) they have woken up that they can get the same thing – or even more salacious lies – online free.
I accept that people who put themselves in the public eye should be open to scrutiny and that their livelihoods often rely on publicity. But, at the same time, they have a right to protect their families and to expect that anybody writing about them has made an honest attempt to verify what they publish.
As for journalists, we owe it to our readers to make that effort on every occasion.
bdebritz@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @debritz
