Noel King

Senator Robert Garcia in a casino, Ted Cruz at the airport, Lindsey Graham, Disney adulting with a bubble wand.

Levin built his empire on celebrity gossip, but he told CNN that it was an interview his outfit did with a TSA worker who wasn't getting her paycheck during the shutdown that radicalized him.

So he set his sights on D.C., sending a team of three producers skittering around Capitol Hill and forcing the question, should we cover our politicians like celebrities?

That's coming up on Today Explained from Vox.

All right, so what is TMZ?

All right.

So TMZ is what we might politely call tabloid news.

Are they considered accurate and reliable?

Because you can cover all kinds of crazy stuff and still be factual and still be like a decent news source.

How are they viewed on the spectrum of news outlets?

OK, so is Harvey Levin's plan to cover D.C.

the way he covers celebrities?

And if so, like what what is it that he thinks people want out of this?

They asked RFK about the raccoon penis.

One wonders whether or not this is just schtick news.

And TMZ is doing it for a couple weeks, a couple months because it gets them a lot of attention or whether or not there is a serious effort being made here to cover Capitol Hill.

And I ask you this question in part because journalism is famously dying.

People are famously abandoning, you know, bureaus all over the country, all over the world.

And so this is if this is a real investment, this is a real investment.

So is this a real investment or is this just three guys running around acting nuts?