Web Celeb Rag Scores Big

The past year has been a series of star-studded train wrecks. For TMZ, this translates into a wellspring of content, from Mel Gibson's drunken jeremiad on Jews to Britney Spears's chrome-doming. And don't forget the rehab turn of Lindsay Lohan, the Rosie O'Donnell-Donald Trump morality feud, Michael Richards's slur-laced on-stage meltdown, the Australian arrest of muscleman Sylvester Stallone on suspicion of smuggling human growth hormone, and NASA's astro-nut stalking her romantic rival. If TMZ were a weather news Web site, it would have reported a year full of hurricanes and twisters.

Early each morning, working on East Coast time, the TMZ staff begins scouring the Web sites of photo agencies such as Splashnews and veteran paparazzo Phil Ramey, looking for images they want to buy. These augment the photos and video supplied by a TMZ staff of up to five videographers constantly on the prowl. In addition, reporters beat the Hollywood streets and burn up the phones tracking down news, which McLoughlin said typically is verified by three sources.

TMZ's newsgathering may show one way forward for journalism.

"Maybe paying for such news is unsound, according to the newsroom sages," Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University and media critic, wrote in an e-mail response to questions. "But going around the entertainment industry by making friends with valets and bellhops is more sound than the methods in place at that time in the press where many of those sages come from," meaning the traditional way of getting celebrity news -- from their publicists.

Sometimes, news comes in over the TMZ transom. For instance, the video of Richards, a former "Seinfeld" star, was captured by an audience member in November. TMZ bought the video for "the low, low four-figures," Citron said.

Video is TMZ's biggest asset and what sets it apart from print magazines such as People and Us Weekly. A few years ago, slower Internet connections would have made for balky viewing. But today's higher-speed connections make it easier to view new videos, so TMZ can offer more must-see content in a way that magazines cannot. TMZ boasts more than 2,000 videos, well more than other celebrity sites.

Five years ago, TMZ probably would have launched as a magazine. These days, why bother? Why deal with the overhead of buying glossy stock, printing a physical product, negotiating with distributors and fighting for shelf space when you don't have to?

"Starting online is a new way to brand ideas and a very cost-efficient way to try things," McLoughlin said.

Citron agrees. "It helps that we started without any baggage," he said. "There was no existing edition in print or on TV that we would have had to work in from the beginning."

Instead, the opposite is true: The TV version of TMZ was picked up by all 35 Fox television stations (including Washington's WTTG) for September. The show will not attempt to ape existing evening celebrity shows such as "Entertainment Tonight" and "Inside Edition" but will follow TMZ's grittier formula, meaning none of the prepackaged sit-down interviews common among the other shows, McLoughlin said.

Now, Washington must brace for TMZ, which hopes there's an eager audience for paparazzi pictures of D.C. operatives.

But will TMZ users care about the Washington underbelly, saggy as it may be?

"There's a market for anyone famous doing anything funny or embarrassing," Citron said.