|
|
 |
|
July 29, 2010 |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| June 07, 2002 |
By: Harris Meyer |
|
ossip columnist Jose Lambiet has written plenty about people behaving badly. But the former Sun-Sentinel gossip slinger told journalists in a speech last weekend in Fort Lauderdale that the bad behavior in the major leagues of dish has been morally unsettling — even to him.
The Belgian-born Lambiet left the Sun-Sentinel a year ago for a much higher-paying job — with a first-class expense account — at the Star, a supermarket tabloid owned by Boca Raton-based American Media Inc. CEO David Pecker hired him, he says, after he wrote about an incident in which Pecker’s black Corvette was keyed in the company parking lot and Pecker suspected employees.
The shiny-domed Lambiet told his fascinated audience at the National Writers Conference that his first six months at the tab were “hell” because he didn’t like the people, developing sources in the New York/Los Angeles/Las Vegas celebrity axis was tough, and PR agents cut him off whenever he wrote unfavorably about any of their clients.
At first, Lambiet was uneasy about paying sources for information, an absolute no-no in regular journalism. He was offering people thousands of dollars to feed him dirt about their friends, associates, siblings, lovers, spouses, and children — and they were taking it.
“I hate to use unnamed sources,” Lambiet says. “But readers wouldn’t want to know that the sister of their favorite actor was ratting him out for money.” He’s gotten over his own queasiness about buying information, and now urges mainstream U.S. news organizations to give up their “hypocritical” scruples.
But the columnist saves his harshest contempt for Los Angeles law firms that specialize in trying to scare tabloid reporters out of writing negative pieces about their clients.
Recently, Lambiet said, a lawyer wrote an eight-page letter warning him not to denigrate the size of actor Greg Kinnear’s penis. Kinnear was set to play a nude orgy scene with actor Willem Dafoe and an actress in the new Martin Scorsese film. But, according to Lambiet’s sources, Kin-near felt thoroughly outclassed when Dafoe, reputedly the best-endowed actor in Hollywood, doffed his shorts and unveiled his equipment. The lawyer’s letter defended the comparative size of Kinnear’s organ, Lambiet said.
The Star ran the story anyway, but softened it a little. “Eight pages for something as puny as that,” Lambiet said.
|
Search the archive for more stories.
|
|
|
 |
|
lawjobs Featured Ad
Associate
Dynamic, multi-practice law firm seeks associate with 1-2 years exp. for litigation in workers' comp. department; excellent salary and benefits.
Please fax resume to
(954) 938-7902 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
