The Hard Edge of the “Page Six” Gossip Machine

Posted on Apr 17, 2006

From the N.Y. Times

The N.Y. Times says that the N.Y. Post’s Page Six gossip column “occupies a significant coordinate in the business cosmology of New York City.”

The N.Y. Times (which is reportedly closing its own gossip page) quizzes a veritable who’s-who of New York’s ‘buzz industry’ leaders on the power of the N.Y. Post’s gossip page (which came under fire for the alleged extortion activities of one of its star writers.)

N.Y. Times:

The Hard Edge of a Fluff Machine
By DAVID CARR

Last Monday on Page Six of The New York Post, there was a throwdown between two dwarves who lead rival Kiss cover bands, an unattributed item about a celebrity mom “who likes to partake in her daughter’s pastimes,” and a tiff between Naomi Campbell and Sean Combs.

And then there was an item about American Media Inc., headed by David J. Pecker, suggesting that his business was in trouble, that he was about to sell two of his biggest properties and get rid of a star editor, Bonnie Fuller, and that all employees who had been let go in recent months were given only two weeks’ severance. “Calls to A.M.I. were not returned,” the item said.

Not much of this was clinically true, as it turned out. A small correction was printed the next day. Not that it mattered, Mr. Pecker said in an interview.

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