Tanika Ray went from performing with the stars as an actress and dancer to interviewing them on the red carpet. In the latest installment of Mediabistro’s So What Do You Do? series, Ray talks about the pitfalls of covering entertainment news and how her career is far from glamorous.

“I actually witnessed somebody in the office cheering when something unfortunate happened to a celebrity,” she said. “You lose sight of what is real when you live everyday like ‘gotta get the big story, gotta get the big story.’”

Though her unconventional career may seem fabulous, it’s all an illusion, says Ray. “It’s very glamorous to the outsider, never to the person who has to trek around Los Angeles in their own car, make sure their makeup’s OK, go from one shoot to the other and manage everyone’s expectations.”

Read more in So What Do You Do, Tanika Ray, Red Carpet Reporter and Host of The CW’s Oh, Sit!?

With the blockbuster TV show in its fifth season, Gossip Girl has firmly cemented its place as one of the most successful young adult franchises of our time. But the author of the fiction series that spawned the show has sobering words for authors hoping to do the same with their titles: “just go write a screenplay.”

“I really think it’s to a book’s detriment to think of it as, ‘Oh, this is going to be a great movie.’ It’s hard!” Gossip Girl creator Cecily von Ziegesar said  in mediabistro’s So What Do You Do? interview. “I think the best thing to do is write a book thinking no one’s going to read it.  It’s certainly not going to be made into a movie, and I’m just doing this because I have to write this book, because I really want to write this book. I’m not writing this because it’s going to be a huge hit. The most successful books were not meant to be; they came out of nowhere.”

Click here for the full interview.

Remember all the behind-the-scenes in-fighting on Beverly Hills 90210? Neither do we. But Will Keck does, and he opts to launch his new TV Guide column What the Keck?! with dish from the set of the new old show.

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Hasselhoff Child Support: David Hasselhoff has agreed to pay $25,000 a month to support his ex-wife and children. We hear he’s taking the money directly from his beer and burger fund.

Danny Federici Dies: Danny Federici, keyboardist for the E Street Band, died Thursday after battling melanoma for three years. He was 58. Former rock critic Robert Hilburn is quoted extensively in the un-bylined obit. We have to wonder if he was interviewed, or if that was just Hilburn’s copy reworked.

OMFG: Hoping to boost old fashioned ratings for its hit show Gossip Girls, the CW television network said it would no longer offer free Internet streams of new episodes when the show returns Monday. Said fans of the show, “L8r, losers.”

Show Biz is back:

ABC: pickups of nine primetime shows: Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Dirty Sexy Money, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, Samantha Who? and Ugly Betty. How many of these are keepers?

CW: new episodes for five series: One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, Supernatural, Reaper and Smallville. One of these is not like the others.

A&E: new scripted drama series–Cleaner starring Benjamin Bratt as a guy who makes a deal with God to control his addictions and dedicate his life to help others. Remember when Bratt was sexy?

FX: season two of The Riches, starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver? Remember when she was everywhere?

E!: new reality show with Denise Richards, from Ryan Seacrest Prods. There’s a match made in heaven.

Don’t Blame It On The Writers: Reporter Scott Collins says the glut of stupid reality fare on TV has less to do with the strike than it does stingy networks looking to cash in on low-cost (and low-rent) TV fare.

Speaking Of The Writers’ Strike: Notice how more networks seem engaged in the presidential primaries than ever before? Matea Gold has. So, for that matter, has Stephen King.

On Second Thought: Maybe you can blame the writers’ strike — at least for the failure of the CW to live up to the hype.

The CW canceled Online Nation. The Sunday night time period will be filled with reruns of Aliens in America starting this weekend. If you search around YouTube, you can find most of the show’s content, anyway.

FOX’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles premieres in January. This series picks up were Terminator 2: Judgment Day left off. In the role of Sarah Connor is Lena Headey, with Thomas Dekker as her son Thomas.

Versus kicks off a new series on October 25th at 8p called Greatest High School Football Rivalries produced by NFL Films. This weekly series highlights six of the country top match-ups in high school football this season. NFL Films can now control all the footage of a player for his entire career.

Peachtree TV , part of TBS’s local Atlanta offering, will launch it’s first original series, Drumline: SWD: Best Band in the Land, featuring the Southwest DeKalb High School Marching Panther Band. The band appeared in Drumline, the film.

SciFi Channel has a new drama project in the works–Revolution. Writers Ed Redlich and John Bellucci set the American Revolution 200 years in the future on a distant planet, in a galaxy far, far away.

While Gossip Girl is the only new series to get a reorder, the CW isn’t taking any chances– Cane, Bionic Woman, Chuck, Life and Journeyman all have ordered additional scripts. If there’s a writers strike at the end of this month, viewers won’t suffer–or they’ll suffer more, depending on your take on those shows.

And will there be a strike? The Wall Street Journal featured The Artful Writer as the must-see site for those who want to know which way the wind is blowing. And that includes WGA leadership.

Craig Mazin writes that things are getting worse, and that he’s learning towards a “yes” vote for strike authorization.

Earlier:
WGA Members to NYT Writer Brook Barnes: Wise Up!

Will TiVo Save TV? Columnist Scott Collins thinks so. This fall, Nielsen will include more DVR habits in its ratings. Of course, in our home that just means that Seasame Street will become the highest rated prime-time show, but nothing’s perfect.

Perfect Strangers: Let’s all do the dance of joy! The CW has revived 80s sitcom Perfect Strangers for the post-9/11 crowd. It’s called Aliens In America, and it sounds like perfectly dreadful. Which means it’ll probably be a hit.

LAT/OCR Cat Fight: The Orange County Register has for years run a feature called My Dog’s Face, which was just a page of photos of readers’ dogs. Well, check out this Copy Cat.

The CW offers city gals the chance to hogtie a husband on a new reality show from Fremantle, The Farmer Wants a Wife. Ten women compete in farm-style challenges– driving the tractor, slopping the hogs, etc.

Predictably, the president of the Nebraska Farmer’s Union is concerned about the image of farmers as hayseeds.

And in other reality show news, job site Reality Staff.com has added forums where production types can violate their NDAs.