From Paris To Hollywood, TMZ Corners The Market

By ALLISON HOPE WEINER The New York Times

Published: Jun 30, 2007

LOS ANGELES - While the networks tussled over which would land the first interview with Paris Hilton after her release from jail, the upstart Web site TMZ.com was breaking most of the news.

On June 3, TMZ.com was the only media outlet to capture on video Hilton's surrender at the Los Angeles central jail for men, while other outlets waited outside the Lynwood women's jail for her to arrive there. When Hilton was released early by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and when Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered the sheriff to take her back to court, TMZ.com was first to report that Baca initially had refused to follow the judge's order.

TMZ.com has so dominated the coverage on Hilton that Larry King, who interviewed her on CNN on Wednesday night, devoted Monday night's one-hour show to TMZ.com's anchor and managing editor, Harvey Levin, the man who may represent the future of celebrity journalism.

In the past, media coverage of celebrities often hinged on the promotional agenda of studios, publicists and other handlers. Under the direction of Levin, a former lawyer and investigative reporter, and Jim Paratore, an executive consultant to the site, TMZ.com quickly has gained an audience by posting news articles garnered from documents, unofficial videotapes, exclusive paparazzi shots and other sources such as law enforcement officials and courthouse clerks. (The name stands for "thirty mile zone," referring to the area around Los Angeles populated by celebrities.)

"We work as hard at breaking a Britney Spears story as NBC would work on breaking a President Bush piece," Levin said.

As a result, TMZ.com has become the celebrity handler's worst nightmare. The site has had a series of damaging celebrity scoops, including the police report detailing Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic tirade, Michael Richards' racist rant in a comedy club, an audiotape of the angry phone message Alec Baldwin left for his daughter and a photograph of Anna Nicole Smith's refrigerator filled with methadone and Slim-Fast.

Site Sets Entertainment Agenda

TMZ.com's reach extends well beyond the approximately 9 million people who visit the Web site each month. The site has become a reliable source for the mainstream media, which has become less self-conscious about reporting every detail of celebrity missteps, said Hilary Estey McLoughlin, the president of Telepictures Productions, a division of Warner Brothers, which co-owns the TMZ site with AOL. Both Warner Brothers and AOL are divisions of Time Warner.

"There are times, like with the Paris Hilton story, where we've set the agenda for what local news and national news are covering," Estey McLoughlin said. "Paris Hilton leads every newscast."

Last week, for example, TMZ.com posted excerpts of O.J. Simpson's unpublished book, "If I Did It." Although it wasn't the first Web site to have excerpts, TMZ's involvement helped make the book a national story again.

Levin likens the influence of TMZ to a wire service. "We've become like The Associated Press in the world we cover," he said.

That influence has made him a feared figure in Hollywood. One publicist who declined to speak on the record because of fear of retaliation against his clients likened Levin's power to that of 1940s and 1950s gossip columnists such as Walter Winchell.

"If you have something you know they will like, you tip them to it," the publicist said. "It's kind of the old way you dealt with the old-time gossip columnists. You have to occasionally feed them an item. You have to be in the game with them. If you're a publicist and the only time you call up is to complain about an item, they'll laugh at you."

Even Hollywood criminal lawyers concede that dealing with TMZ has become part of their legal strategy. Shawn Chapman Holley, who represents Nicole Richie, acknowledges that TMZ's ability to get information has affected strategic decisions in Richie's drunken-driving case.

"When we approach the bench, what we know and when TMZ will know it is a factor discussed with the judge," he said. "Miss Richie's case would be set for a particular day, and to throw off TMZ.com, I would go in a day before. Unfortunately, TMZ.-

com figured out my strategy."

Setting A Harsher Tone?

TMZ.com has been ranked the No.1 Hollywood news site for nine months against well-known brands such as Entertainment Weekly's EW.com, People.com and E! Online. Time Warner does not break out revenue figures for TMZ.com, but the site is profitable, according to people familiar with the numbers who did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to speak about the site's finances. Beginning in July, TMZ's 25 staff members will work out of offices in West Hollywood and one reporter will continue to work from New York.

TMZ also has contributed to the different tone of much entertainment coverage.

"Five years ago there was so much reverence in the discussion," said Janice Min, editor in chief of Us Weekly. "I've seen a shift in the tone. It's now equal parts reverence and contempt, and TMZ has been able to capitalize on that contemptuous feeling. TMZ pokes fun at celebrity - sometimes gentle, sometimes quite harsh - and to millions of people, that's more engaging than reading a canned interview."

Inevitably, however, TMZ comes to rely on a symbiosis with the people it covers.

"We supply them with news all the time because it goes around the world in 12 seconds," said Stan Rosenfield, George Clooney's publicist. "There's a pragmatism that takes hold, because people read it."