Gossip columnist

While gossip columnists’ "bread and butter" is rumor, innuendo, and allegations of scandalous behavior, there is a fine line between legally acceptable spreading of rumor and the making of defamatory statements, which can provoke a lawsuit. Newspaper and magazine editorial policies normally require gossip columnists to have a source for all of their allegations, to protect the publisher against lawsuits for defamation (libel).

In the United States, celebrities or public figures can sue for libel if their private lives are revealed in gossip columns and they believe that their reputation has been defamed – that is, exposed to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or pecuniary loss. Gossip columnists cannot defend against libel claims by arguing that they merely repeated, but did not originate the defaming rumor or claim; instead, a columnist must prove that the allegedly defaming statement was truthful, or that it was based on a reasonably reliable source.

In the mid-1960s, rulings by the United States Supreme Court made it harder for the media to be sued for libel in the U.S. The court ruled that libel only occurred in cases where a publication printed falsehoods about a celebrity with "reckless disregard" for the truth. A celebrity suing a newspaper for libel must now prove that the paper published the falsehood with actual malice, or with deliberate knowledge that the statement was both incorrect and defamatory.

Moreover, the court ruled that only factual misrepresentation is libel, not expression of opinion. Thus if a gossip columnist writes that they "...think that Celebrity X is an idiot," the columnist does not face a risk of being sued for libel. On the other hand, if the columnist invents an allegation that "...Celebrity X is a wife beater," with no supporting source or evidence, the celebrity can sue for libel on the grounds that their reputation was defamed.

There is however circumstances where gossip columnist may not be fact checking the information they are receiving from their sources before publishing their stories. Not to mention that there are gossip columnist that are not reputable themselves to be posting articles about celebrities. As a result of this there is a chance that there are stories that have been publish that could lead to the defamation of celebrities.

Louella Parsons (1937)

The first gossip columnist, dominating the 1930s and 40s, was Walter Winchell,[1] who used political, entertainment, and social connections to mine information and rumors, which he then either published in his column On Broadway, or used for trade or blackmail, to accumulate more power. He became "the most feared journalist" of his era.

In Hollywood's "golden age" in the 1930s and 1940s, gossip columnists were courted by the movie studios, so that the studios could use gossip columns as a powerful publicity tool. During this period, the major film studios had "stables" of contractually obligated actors, and the studios controlled nearly all aspects of the lives of their movie stars. From the 1930s through the 1950s, the two best-known – and competing – Hollywood gossip columnists were Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons.

Well-timed leaks about a star's purported romantic adventures helped the studios to create and sustain the public's interest in the studios' star actors. As well, the movie studios' publicity agents acted as unnamed "well-informed inside sources" who provided misinformation and rumors to counteract whispers about celebrity secrets – such as homosexuality or an out-of-wedlock child — that could have severely damaged not only the reputation of the movie star in question, but the movie star's box office viability.

Having fallen into ill-repute after the heyday of Hopper and Parsons, gossip columnists saw a comeback in the 1980s. Today, many mainstream magazines such as Time which would once have considered the idea of hiring gossip columnists to pen articles to have been beneath their stature, have sections titled "People" or "Entertainment". These mainstream gossip columns provide a light, chatty glimpse into the private lives and misadventures of the rich and famous. At the other end of the journalism spectrum, there are entire publications that deal primarily in gossip, rumor, and innuendo about celebrities, such as the 'red-top' tabloids in the UK and celebrity 'tell-all' magazines.

Cindy Adams (April 2007)

Michael Musto (March 2007)

Notable gossip columnists include:

Gossip columns that are not named after a specific columnist, along with the media source, include:

• 3am — Daily Mirror, a British newspaper.
• Access Hollywood — a syndicated television program
• Bizarre — The Sun, a London newspaper
• Page Six — New York Post, a New York City newspaper
• Inside New York, in New York Post, New York City newspaper
• Inside the Beltway — The Washington Times, a Washington, D.C. newspaper
• Off the Record — The New York Observer, a New York newspaper
• Vegas Confidential — Las Vegas Review-Journal, a Las Vegas newspaper

• Gossip
• Innuendo
• Roman à clef
• Blind item
• Defamation

• Mulcahy, Susan (1988). My Lips Are Sealed: Confessions of a Gossip Columnist. New York: Doubleday.