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Chapter 1: How is TMZ shifting its focus to political reporting?
If you are watching this and you see a senator out and about somewhere, especially somewhere on vacation, send them to us. Send it to the TMZ tip line.
TMZ founder Harvey Levin asked Americans' answer during the recent government shutdown. Tipsters sent him photos of lawmakers doing anything but their jobs. 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.
It's not that the Democrats are at fault or the Republicans are at fault. They're all at fault.
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.
Do you think you would have got as far in politics if you weren't so handsome?
Hey, I'm Matt Buchel, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your FYP. And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, don't swipe away. It's called That Sounds Like a Lot. You know that feeling when you check your phone, read a few headlines, and think, that sounds like a lot. I can't do this. Well, I can, and I'm going to get into it every Friday.
You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm going to start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world. And then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or, honestly, anyone who responds to my DMs. This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to feel a little bit better about it. That sounds like a lot. Coming May 1st.
Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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Chapter 2: What sparked Harvey Levin's interest in covering politicians?
All right, so what is TMZ?
TMZ is a celebrity tabloid that is not print. It's always been online. And they have a reputation for being very aggressive in their tactics.
Hey, did you hear the tragedy? Brad and Angie are breaking up.
They like to get in people's faces and ask them questions. They will go up to a crime scene. They will publish photos that no one else will touch. TMZ has drawn massive outrage after the tabloid published pictures of the late Liam Payne's body after the One Direction singer tragically fell to his death from the roof of a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
They also have a controversial practice of paying sources for videos, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, depending on how juicy it is. And they've been around for a little over two decades, yeah. And just telling us all about the celebrity dirt for better and worse, so.
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?
There is quite a degree of skepticism when it comes to TMZ, even though they do have a track record for breaking huge news. Like they were the first outlet to report and confirm that Michael Jackson had died, for instance. Michael Jackson, the coroner's report has come out.
The cause of death is, and I'll read it for you, acute propofol intoxication.
So there's this kind of begrudging sense that they are able to get scoops very quickly, but there needs to be an additional layer of confirmation in order to be able to go forward with that news. Where did the impulse to cover Washington, to cover politics come from? So Harvey grew up in the San Fernando Valley here in Los Angeles County, and his father owned a liquor store in the area.
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Chapter 3: How does TMZ's approach to politicians differ from traditional media?
Which is fascinating because it does not seem that unlike what TMZ is doing to me. Let me read you some of the description. The style section role will focus on illuminating the people, both famous and obscure, who animate the Capitol.
From the social circuits, group chats, and digital ecosystems that define modern political life, this beat captures the mood, the moments, and the meaning behind Washington's ever-shifting cast of characters." So by virtue of having cast of characters in a job listing, I think that that is already indicative of TMZ's effect on the media ecosystem in Washington.
But I think they're also responding to something bigger happening in the media ecosystem where traditional outlets are hiring reporters to cover this intersection of pop culture, personality issues, power and politicians.
I think the Wall Street Journal had a very similar role, but had more to do with the finance sector as well, but very much interrogating the personalities and the kind of juiciness that happens over a round of martinis more so than what happens in boardrooms.
So TMZ, job creator.
You said that, not me.
She's Paula Mejia, writer and editor covering culture. Coming up, hide in the bushes with me, how we started covering politicians like celebrities.
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Chapter 4: What controversies has TMZ faced in its reporting practices?
And it all went away in one week in what was the first sort of modern broadcast era sex scandal in politics. He was said to be having an affair with a woman who was not his wife and that he spent a night with her on a boat and then had her in his townhouse. He was followed by reporters. From the Miami Herald to sort of hid in the bushes in his street, in his house.
We were just going to watch the townhouse until I would actually have the chance to see Senator Hart and at that point talk with him. And followed him, accosted him in an alley.
And I walk up to him and I say, excuse me, Senator Hart, my name's Jim McGee, I'm a reporter from the Miami Herald, and I'd like to talk to you.
It all made for great drama. And his political ambitions in that moment imploded and his political career never really remotely recovered.
I've made some mistakes. I've said so. I said I would because I'm human. And I did. Maybe big mistakes, but not bad mistakes.
What was new here was that rather than having it be discovered, either in the commission of a crime or by some kind of disclosure, reporters went out and searched for evidence of extramarital affairs on Gary Hart's part. And the press really decided in that moment that it was both relevant and essential to know whether he had been faithful to his wife or not.
And Hart, who grew up in an era of very different rules and who knew most of these reporters quite well, well enough to have dinner or drinks with them, and who was and is a very private Western kind of personality and sort of, in that sense, maybe the Dick Cheney mold, basically said, this is none of your business. And that was not considered a suitable answer then or now.
He never elaborated, including to me. I wrote an entire book about it. And I think, you know, the thing that resonates about Hart and the reason I revisited it and the reason I think it still holds some fascination among people who lived through that moment in 1987 is that he was not an ordinary senator or presidential candidate. He was a very brilliant candidate.
a politician of his day who was very forward-looking. A lot of his insight and agenda would become part of Bill Clinton and the New Democrats' agenda very soon afterward.
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