Gossip columnist
Encyclopedia
A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...

 column
in a newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 or magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

, especially a gossip magazine
Gossip magazine
Gossip magazines feature scandalous stories about the personal lives of celebrities. This genre of magazine flourished in North America in the 1950s and early 1960s. The title Confidential alone boasted a monthly circulation in excess of ten million, and it had many competitors, with names like...

. Gossip columns are material written in a light, informal style, which relates the gossip columnist's opinions about the personal lives or conduct of celebrities
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

 from show business
Show business
Show business, sometimes shortened to show biz, is a vernacular term for all aspects of entertainment. The word applies to all aspects of the entertainment industry from the business side to the creative element ....

 (motion picture
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 movie star
Movie star
A movie star is a celebrity who is well-known, or famous, for his or her starring, or leading, roles in motion pictures. The term may also apply to an actor or actress who is recognized as a marketable commodity and whose name is used to promote a movie in trailers and posters...

s, theater, and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 actors), politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

s, professional sports
Professional sports
Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...

 stars, and other wealth
Wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...

y people or public figures. Some gossip columnists broadcast segments on radio
Radio programming
Radio programming is the Broadcast programming of a Radio format or content that is organized for Commercial broadcasting and Public broadcasting radio stations....

 and television
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

.

The columns mix factual material on arrests, divorces, marriages and pregnancies, obtained from official records, with more speculative gossip stories, rumor
Rumor
A rumor or rumour is often viewed as "an unverified account or explanation of events circulating from person to person and pertaining to an object, event, or issue in public concern" However, a review of the research on rumor conducted by Pendleton in 1998 found that research across sociology,...

s, and innuendo
Innuendo
An innuendo is a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging , that works obliquely by allusion...

 about romantic relationships, affairs, and purported personal problems.

Gossip columnists have a reciprocal relationship with the celebrities whose private lives are splashed about in the gossip column's pages. Of course, some gossip columnists can engage in borderline defamatory conduct, spreading innuendo about alleged immoral
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...

 or illegal conduct that can injure celebrities' reputations. Yet at the same time, gossip columnists are also an important part of the "Star System" publicity machine that turns movie actors and musicians into celebrities and superstar
Superstar
A superstar is a widely acclaimed celebrity.Superstar or superstars may also refer to:-People:* Warhol Superstar, associates of Andy Warhol* WWE Superstar, the term used to refer to entertainers from the WWE...

s that are the objects of the public's obsessive attention and interest. The publicity agents
Press agent
A press agent, or flack, is a professional publicist who acts on behalf of his or her client on all matters involving public relations. Press agents are typically employed by public personalities and organizations such as performers and businesses...

 of celebrities often provide or "leak" information or rumors to gossip columnists to publicize the celebrity or their projects, or to counteract "bad press" that has recently surfaced about their conduct.

Libel and defamation

While gossip columnists’ "bread and butter" is rumor, innuendo, and allegations of scandalous behavior, there is a fine line between legally acceptable spreading of innuendo and rumor and the making of defamatory statements, which can provoke a lawsuit. Newspaper and magazine editorial policies normally require gossip columnists to have a source for all of their allegations to protect the publisher against lawsuits for defamation.

Celebrities or public figures whose private lives are revealed in gossip columns who believe that their reputation has been defamed — that is, exposed to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or pecuniary
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...

 loss — can sue for libel. A gossip columnist cannot defend themselves from a libel claim by arguing that they merely repeated, but did not originate the defamating rumor or claim; instead, the columnist has to prove that the allegedly defaming statement was truthful, or that it was based on a reasonably reliable source.

In the mid-1960s, rulings by the United States Supreme Court made it harder for the media to be sued for libel in the U.S. The court ruled that libel only occurred in cases where a publication printed falsehoods about a celebrity with “reckless disregard” for the truth. A celebrity suing a newspaper for libel must now prove that the paper published the falsehood with actual malice
Malice (legal term)
Malice is a legal term referring to a party's intention to do injury to another party. Malice is either expressed or implied. Malice is expressed when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a human being...

 or with deliberate knowledge that the statement was both incorrect and defamatory.

Moreover, the court ruled that only factual misrepresentation is libel, not expression of opinion. Thus if a gossip columnist writes that they “...think that Celebrity X is an idiot,” the columnist does not face a risk of being sued for libel. On the other hand, if the columnist invents an allegation that “...Celebrity X is a wife beater,” with no supporting source or evidence, the celebrity can sue for libel on the grounds that their reputation was defamed.

History

The first gossip columnist, dominating the 1930s and 40s, was Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...

, who used political, entertainment, and social connections to mine information and rumors, which he then either published in his column On Broadway, or used for trade or blackmail, to accumulate more power. He became "the most feared journalist" of his era.

In Hollywood's "golden age
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative, are terms used in film history which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.Classical style is...

" in the 1930s and 1940s, gossip columnists were courted by the movie studio
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...

s, so that the studios could use gossip columns as a powerful publicity tool. During this period, the major film studios had "stables" of contractually obligated actors, and the studios controlled nearly all aspects of the lives of their movie stars. From the 1930s through the 1950s, the two best-known - and competing - Hollywood gossip columnists were Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...

 and Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...

.

Well-timed leaks
News leak
A news leak is a disclosure of embargoed information in advance of its official release, or the unsanctioned release of confidential information.-Types of news leaks:...

 about a star's purported romantic adventures helped the studios to create and sustain the public's interest in the studios' star actors. As well, the movie studios' publicity agents acted as unnamed "well-informed inside sources" who provided misinformation and rumors to counteract whispers about celebrity secrets — such as homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

 or an out-of-wedlock
Legitimacy (law)
At common law, legitimacy is the status of a child who is born to parents who are legally married to one another; and of a child who is born shortly after the parents' divorce. In canon and in civil law, the offspring of putative marriages have been considered legitimate children...

 child — that could have severely damaged not only the reputation of the movie star in question, but the movie star's box office viability.

Having fallen into ill-repute after the heyday of Hopper and Parsons, gossip columnists saw a comeback in the 1980s. Today, many mainstream magazines such as Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

which would once have considered the idea of hiring gossip columnists to pen articles to have been beneath their stature, have sections titled "People" or "Entertainment". These mainstream gossip columns provide a light, chatty glimpse into the private lives and misadventures of the rich and famous. At the other end of the journalism spectrum, there are entire publications that deal primarily in gossip, rumor, and innuendo about celebrities, such as the 'red-top' tabloids in the UK and celebrity 'tell-all' magazines
Gossip magazine
Gossip magazines feature scandalous stories about the personal lives of celebrities. This genre of magazine flourished in North America in the 1950s and early 1960s. The title Confidential alone boasted a monthly circulation in excess of ten million, and it had many competitors, with names like...

.

Notable gossip columnists

Notable gossip columnists include:
  • Cindy Adams
    Cindy Adams
    Cindy Adams is an American gossip columnist and writer. She is the widow of comedian and humorist Joey Adams.-Early life and education:Born an only child in New York City, she was one year old when her parents divorced...

  • Jani Allan
    Jani Allan
    Jani Allan is a South African columnist and radio commentator. She became a household name as a columnist for the Sunday Times where she worked between 1979-90. She is also known for her alleged affair with an interviewee, the late right-wing political leader Eugène Terre'Blanche...

  • Army Archerd
    Army Archerd
    Armand Andre "Army" Archerd was a columnist for Variety for over fifty years before retiring his "Just for Variety" column in September 2005. In November 2005, Archerd began blogging for Variety and was working on a memoir when he died.-Life and career:Archerd was born in The Bronx, New York, and...

  • Rona Barrett
    Rona Barrett
    Rona Barrett is an American gossip columnist and businesswoman. She currently runs the Rona Barrett Foundation, a non-profit organization in Santa Ynez, California, dedicated to the aid and support of senior citizens in need.-Career and personal life:As a teenager, Barrett overcame a degenerative...

  • Milly Cangiano
  • Ted Casablanca
    Ted Casablanca
    Ted Casablanca is an American entertainment journalist for E! Online and has a column called The Awful Truth.-Career:...

  • Claudia Cohen
    Claudia Cohen
    Claudia Lynn Cohen was an American gossip columnist, socialite, and television reporter.-Early life and education:...

  • Mike Connolly
  • Giles Coren
    Giles Coren
    Giles Coren is a British food critic, television presenter and novelist. He is known for expressing controversial opinions, and for his television appearances with the comedian Sue Perkins.-Personal:...

  • Ana Marie Cox
    Ana Marie Cox
    Ana Marie Cox is an American author and blogger. The founding editor of the political blog Wonkette, she is currently the Washington correspondent for GQ and is The Guardian's lead blogger on US politics. She previously worked at Air America Media.-Early life:Cox was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico...

  • Nigel Dempster
    Nigel Dempster
    Nigel Richard Patton Dempster was a British journalist, author, broadcaster and diarist. Best known for his celebrity gossip columns in newspapers, his work appeared in the Daily Express and Daily Mail and also in Private Eye magazine...

  • Matt Drudge
    Matt Drudge
    Matthew Nathan Drudge is the American creator and editor of the Drudge Report, a news aggregation website. Drudge is self-described as being conservative and populist. Drudge has also authored a book and hosted a radio show and a television show.-Early years:Matthew Drudge was raised in Takoma...

  • Jinx Falkenburg
    Jinx Falkenburg
    Jinx Falkenburg was an actress, expert swimmer and tennis star, and one of the highest-paid and most ubiquitous cover-girl models in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, one of the first supermodels. She married journalist and influential publicist Tex McCrary in 1945...

  • Jimmy Fidler
    Jimmy Fidler
    Jimmie Fidler was an American columnist, journalist and radio and television personality. He wrote a Hollywood gossip column and was sometimes billed as Jimmy Fidler.Born in St...

  • Luke Ford
    Luke Ford
    Luke Ford is an American writer, blogger, and former pornography gossip columnist known for his disclosures and traditionalist Jewish religious views.-Personal:Ford moved to California in 1977...

  • Sheilah Graham
  • Lloyd Grove
    Lloyd Grove
    Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast, the Web site run by Tina Brown and backed by Barry Diller. He is also a frequent contributor to New York Magazine...

  • Ian Halperin
    Ian Halperin
    Ian Halperin is a Canadian investigative journalist and writer from Montreal, Quebec whose 2009 book, Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson was a #1 best-seller on the New York Times list on July 24, 2009. He is the author or coauthor of nine books including Celine Dion: Behind the...

  • Courtney Hazlett
    Courtney Hazlett
    Courtney Brooke Hazlett is a columnist and Celebrity Correspondent for todayshow.com, the official site for NBC's The Today Show. She is the author of "The Scoop" blog and column, featured on the todayshow.com, msnbc.com, and Newsvine websites...


  • Perez Hilton
    Perez Hilton
    Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr. , better known as Perez Hilton , is an American blogger and television personality. His blog, Perezhilton.com , is known for posts covering gossip items about celebrities...

  • Hedda Hopper
    Hedda Hopper
    Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...

  • Micah Jesse
    Micah Jesse
    Micah Jesse Koffler , better known as Micah Jesse is an American blogger and television personality. His blog, MicahJesse.com, is known for positive celebrity and lifestyle news. He launched the site in April 2007....

  • Dorothy Kilgallen
    Dorothy Kilgallen
    Dorothy Mae Kilgallen was an American journalist and television game show panelist. She started her career early as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation's New York Evening Journal after spending only two semesters at The College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York...

  • Irv Kupcinet
    Irv Kupcinet
    Irv Kupcinet was an American newspaper columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and a broadcast personality based in Chicago, Illinois...

  • Frances Lynn
    Frances Lynn
    -Biography:Lynn was born in St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington in London, and was educated at Malvern Girls' College.In 1977, Lynn started her journalistic career when she became the film editor and gossip columnist for the now defunct Ritz Newspaper, published by David Bailey. Interview subjects...

  • Elsa Maxwell
    Elsa Maxwell
    Elsa Maxwell was an American gossip columnist and author, songwriter, and professional hostess renowned for her parties for royalty and high society figures of her day....

  • Florabel Muir
    Florabel Muir
    Florabel Muir was an American reporter and newspaper columnist from the 1920s through the 1950s. She was famous for covering both Hollywood celebrities and underworld gangsters....

  • Michael Musto
    Michael Musto
    Michael Musto is an American columnist for the The Village Voice, where he writes La Dolce Musto. Musto was born in Brooklyn to an Italian American family. He attended Columbia University graduating in 1976. During his studies, he was a theater critic for the Columbia Spectator...

  • Louella Parsons
    Louella Parsons
    Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...

  • Rex Reed
    Rex Reed
    Rex Taylor Reed is an American film critic and former co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies. He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.-Life and career:...

  • Liz Smith
    Liz Smith (journalist)
    Mary Elizabeth "Liz" Smith is an American gossip columnist. She is known as The Grand Dame of Dish.- Early life and career :...

  • Adela Rogers St. Johns
    Adela Rogers St. Johns
    Adela Rogers St. Johns was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies and, late in life, appeared with other early twentieth-century figures as one of the 'witnesses' in Warren Beatty's Reds, but she is best remembered for her...

  • Jimmy Starr
    Jimmy Starr
    Jimmy Starr was an American screenwriter and columnist.Starr worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood during the 1930s. From the 1940s he worked as a film writer and columnist, providing reviews and insights into the film world, and made occasional appearances in cameo roles in film...

  • Ed Sullivan
    Ed Sullivan
    Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S...

  • Mike Walker
    Mike Walker (columnist)
    Mike Walker is a gossip columnist for The National Enquirer, and hosted the magazine's 1999-2001 MGM-produced newsmagazine, National Enquirer TV...

  • Jeannette Walls
    Jeannette Walls
    Jeannette Walls is a writer and journalist widely known as former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com — and author of The Glass Castle, a memoir of the nomadic family life of her childhood, which stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 100 weeks.-Early life and education:Walls was born...

  • Earl Wilson
    Earl Wilson (columnist)
    Earl Wilson , born Harvey Earl Wilson, was an American journalist, gossip columnist and author, perhaps best known for his nationally syndicated column, It Happened Last Night....

  • Walter Winchell
    Walter Winchell
    Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...




Columns not named for a columnist

Gossip columns that are not named after a specific columnist, along with the media source, include:
  • 3am
    The 3AM Girls
    The 3AM Girls was the collective title of the gossip columnists for the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mirror. The column is now called 3am and is edited by Clemmie Moodie....

    Daily Mirror, a British newspaper.
  • Access Hollywood
    Access Hollywood
    Access Hollywood is a weekday television entertainment news program covering events and celebrities in the entertainment industry. It was created by former Entertainment Tonight executive producer Jim Van Messel, and is currently directed by Robert Silverstein. In previous years, Doug Dougherty and...

    — a syndicated television program
  • BizarreThe Sun
    The Sun (newspaper)
    The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...

    , a London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

    , United Kingdom
    United Kingdom
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

    , newspaper
  • Page SixNew York Post
    New York Post
    The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

    , a New York City
    New York City
    New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

    , New York
    New York
    New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

    , United States
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

    , newspaper
  • Inside the BeltwayThe Washington Times
    The Washington Times
    The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...

    , a Washington, D.C.
    Washington, D.C.
    Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

    , United States
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

    , newspaper
  • Off the RecordThe New York Observer, a New York City
    New York City
    New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

    , New York
    New York
    New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

    , United States
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

    , newspaper
  • Vegas ConfidentialLas Vegas Review-Journal
    Las Vegas Review-Journal
    The Las Vegas Review-Journal is published in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It is the largest circulating daily newspaper in Nevada, and one of two daily newspapers in Las Vegas . It is the flagship publication of Stephens Media LLC...

    , a Las Vegas
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

    , Nevada
    Nevada
    Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

    , United States
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

    , newspaper
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