Culture: The incestuous, pay-for-play world of celebrity gossip sites
- There’s this unbelievable hunger for a constant flow of information about these people. So everybody has to feed this machine all the time.
- Lindsay Lohan’s lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley • Offering an explanation for why her client is always in the news. Essentially, the $3 billion entertainment gossip industry — specifically, sites like TMZ, Perez Hilton and Radar Online — needs her. The New York Times’ sprawling piece on celebrity gossip sites, which includes interviews with Michael Lohan (along with an explanation of how he made a bunch of money off Jon Gosselin) and an explanation of how the Los Angeles Coroner’s Department has had to fend off gossip reporters climbing over walls in an attempt to catch a photo of a deceased celebrity. (They’ve had two major leaks — death certificates of Michael Jackson and Brittany Murphy.) All in the hunt for hits, guys. source