Gossip to Gospel: When Is It News?

Today gossip as a journalistic craft contrasts with the rancorous world of social media

Karen dishes with NY gossip columnist Liz Smith

Gossip is fun when not malicious. It’s always been part of American culture, but more acceptable today than ever before. People magazine took it mainstream, and Donald Trump has taken it beyond where most ever imagined. When I started out it was a predominantly feminine trade, relegated to the back sections of papers, considered “unserious.” However, in politics, then as now, much of what originates as “gossip” quickly graduates to “gospel” seen on front pages around the world. The lines between public and private life have always been complicated, but in today’s climate, they’re almost nonexistent.

Like Hedda and Louella and Walter Winchell, I, too, made a five-decade career of it. I began my journalism career as a Washington, D.C.-based political gossip columnist beginning in 1969 with my column “Around the Hill” in Roll Call, the Capitol Hill paper, before nationally syndicating my column (which, in turn, necessitated several rebrands to names that included “Karen on Tuesday,” “Karen on Friday,” “Buzz,” “People Talk” and the like) and dishing on camera regularly with Joan Rivers during the Clinton administration. In time, I was able to self-syndicate to dozens of papers around the country and Canada before Universal Press Syndicate and later, Creators, picked up my column.

When I began writing a personality column, I had no idea that I would make a career of so-called “gossip.” In those years, I was flattered when I received a personal snail-mail note from Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee praising an item in my column. After all, landing a gig at the Washington Post was a dream. Bradlee, however, closed his note with the caveat “It’s not you, it’s the art form.” That brought to light why he never picked up my column for the Post. Many colleagues and readers alike felt the title “gossip columnist” implied negativity and/or fluff, something “less” than a serious professional journalist.

Gossip is the real story, the story you often read behind what’s on the front pages. It’s often a step ahead of the news. Today’s gossip is often tomorrow’s gospel.

It was rare for a female reporter to get a front-page by-line, regardless of the breaking news story. But newspapermen were happy to take my tips and use them for larger stories rewritten for the front page with male bylines. That’s how I broke much of the Elián González story. I was the first reporter to gain access inside Elián’s house and interview his father and grandfather in rural Cuba.

Those “trivial” gossip columns sometimes made international headlines, like the undiplomatic “slap heard around the world” in 1986 when Sondra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to the United States, slapped her social secretary at a dinner for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. I remember the first dinner following the incident on a freezing night in D.C. Tables were in a heated tent, which wasn’t enough to keep the guests warm. The ambassador distributed heavy Canadian wool socks and blankets between courses. I nearly froze but like other guests didn’t leave for fear of missing the encore; what would Mrs. Gotlieb do next? That was the fun part of gossip, as well as what was going on under the blankets with newly-met diplomatic dinner partners!

My clever conversational style and chatty format worked for gossip, making it intriguing—entertaining while informing—and protected me from litigation. Not to say I didn’t have threats, Yoko Ono being one of the more prominent. The predictable early morning voice messages on my answering machine began, “This is Yoko Ono. . .” As if I could misidentify her unique voice.

My readers were always fascinated with the Hollywood-Washington connection. Politicians in those days were mostly intellectual, social nerds impressed with the wealth, glamour and glitz of show biz. And vice versa, A-list entertainers were intrigued by the perceived power of pols. The combo lured eyeballs.

Skewering the pretentious boldface names by telling a story in an amusing, chatty style à la Liz Smith, Cindy Adams or Diana McLellan (“The Ear”) was not only more acceptable, it was more accessible to readers. Where else could you read about Elizabeth Taylor (at the time married to the Republican senator from Virginia, John Warner) crunching numbers with Caspar “Cap” Weinberger between lettuce leaves at the “Social Safeway” in Georgetown (so nicknamed because that was where the elite Georgetowners and A-listers shopped for groceries and also where, because the food mart was down the street from the Russian embassy, the cashiers had to speak Russian); or find out what Bill Clinton whispered to Sophia Loren while peering down her cleavage when she was his dinner partner at a White House State Dinner?

Gossip, like many things in our world, has changed today. With the power of social media, “gossip” has taken on a life of its own. No fact-checking, just quick posts. And the current President is a master at the technique to best serve him. We now live in a time of over-sharing on social media. But sometimes that is used as a distraction from the important issues—the ones a “gossip” columnist might share albeit couched in humor and innuendo.

There was a civility to so-called gossip in those days that doesn’t exist today. My sources were often at the highest level. One First Lady was a frequent source; protecting those sources and never betraying them were critical to my success. Sources leak for a reason. I looked at every whistleblower and asked myself, “Why?” Was it to promote him/herself or special interests? To hurt someone else? To gain more power? I always kept such possibilities in mind and put everything in perspective.

Gossip is the real story, the story you often read behind what’s on the front pages. It’s often a step ahead of the news. Today’s gossip is often tomorrow’s gospel. Most importantly, gossip is power. If you know something that someone else doesn’t know, in D.C. that’s power—and if you tell them, that’s even more powerful.

Gossip is entertainment, and these days news looks a lot like entertainment. Political gossip was long a valuable commodity passed around official cocktail receptions right along with the sushi. Social media has changed much of that and blurred the line between public and private life of bold-faced names. One thing that hasn’t changed is our curiosity. The demand is there, regardless of where lines have blurred.

Gossip defines an era. In our era, gossip is news.