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Is TMZ a legit news organization?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Drip, Jul 2, 2009.

  1. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    The big media outlets got their asses whipped byTMZ. When it comes to entertainment news, TMZ has set a high bar. Now, the big boys are questioning whether it is truly a news organization.
    http://www.broadcastingcable.com/blog/BC_Beat/17429-News_Orgs_Still_Wary_of_TMZ.php
     
  2. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    Leave it at what you said — entertainment news — and TMZ at the moment is second to none. The National Enquirer picked the wrong coast.
     
  3. PeteyPirate

    PeteyPirate Guest

    As long as you consider paying sources to be legit, then yes.
     
  4. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    That's a good point FDP but a separate argument in my book.
    They get the news and they've been getting it first a lot lately.
    Sleazy? Maybe. Legit? Very.
     
  5. SF_Express

    SF_Express Active Member

    I actually had a discussion about this at dinner with some other editors the other night.

    By our "old" rules, the fact they're paying sourcs is out of bounds. But as has to be noted a lot these days, the rules have changed.

    Beyond that, TMZ doesn't care about our old rules anyway. They were created by people 50 or 100 years ago who had no idea what 2009 would be like, and certainly not know that something like TMZ would exist.

    I'm not wholly condoning it, just noting.

    TMZ is beating everybody else on a lot of stories. They're doing it their own way, and some of their methods wouldn't be our methods.

    Yet.

    As for me, they've broken several big stories involving the death of somebody this year, including the Angels pitcher.

    If I see a sports death on TMZ right now, I'm not going to say, "Well, it's TMZ, we need somebody else" anymore. I'm going to advocate putting it on the site, properly attributed of course, and current track record says they'll be right.
     
  6. EE94

    EE94 Guest

    Speaking of National Enquirier, people were saying the same thing about it 20 years ago and then Gary Hart got caught doing Monkey Business with Donna Rice

    I worked with a guy who was once an Enquirer reporter. Said it was the best job he ever had - wild expense accounts
     
  7. Rockbottom

    Rockbottom Well-Known Member

    Let's see what they do outside the Thirty Mile Zone that TMZ stands for ... That said, they have west-coast entertainment sewn up pretty good.

    RB
     
  8. friend of the friendless

    friend of the friendless Active Member

    Sirs, Madames,

    It's all so murky now. Paying sources has always been out of bounds ... but what about papers with ownership ties to teams or electronic outlets that are rights-holders? You can hardly turn around without bumping into something like that. A somehat separate issue, I'll admit, but I'm talking about the legitimacy of legit news organizations. No I.F. Stones out there.

    o-<
     
  9. NoOneLikesUs

    NoOneLikesUs Active Member

    European papers have been paying sources for eons. They don't seem to be having the circulation issues we're having.
     
  10. friend of the friendless

    friend of the friendless Active Member

    Mr Us,

    there is cause for concern in the UK. It has become clear, for example, that most of Britain’s local newspapers sit at the intersection of nightmares, the ground zero of The Great Transition.

    Locked into a US-style patchwork of local monopolies, Britain’s regional chains have spent the last six months watching their print-based ad revenues melting into thin air. Their business models remain highly dependent on print-based classified advertising, but the recession will teach butchers, hairdressers and candlestick-makers to exploit the web.

    Regional ad revenues are currently declining by up to 40 per cent year-on-year. Once-fat operating margins are trending toward zero. Enders Analysis predicts that 10,000 jobs in the regional press – half of today’s total – will disappear between now and 2012.

    Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, suggests that the local papers published by her company are engaged in a “struggle for survival”. McCall is ultimately responsible for the Manchester Evening News, Britain’s largest regional newspaper. As a GMG executive told me recently: “When the city of Manchester can’t even sustain a viable newspaper, you know something is deeply wrong.”

    The stakes are not quite so high – yet – for Britain’s national press. The nationals are less reliant on advertising revenues than the regionals. They’re also less reliant on classified advertising. So far, the year-on-year declines in ad revenue have been less steep. Cover price increases are cancelling out the immediate effects of circulation decline.

    http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-04/17/crunch-time-for-british-newspapers.aspx

    I'm not sure it's quite as rosy as you imagine.

    o-<
     
  11. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    TMZ's journalism standards are I'm sure up to those of Entertainment Weekly and/or the Hollywood Reporter. That's their competition, not the Wall Street Journal.
     
  12. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    I wouldn't call TMZ as journalistically rigorous as Entertainment Weekly, which is about the thickness of a pamphlet nowadays.
     
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