Michael Lewittes - FishbowlLA

Gossip Cop Takes Another Shot at Jay Penske’s HollywoodLife

Richard Horgan — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:00:02 +0000

It’s not usually a good thing when an outlet gets the “zero” rating on gossipcop.com’s rumor-to-truth left-margin thermometer graph. That was the case this morning with Bonnie Fuller‘s HollywoodLife or, as Gossip Cop deems the outlet, “Jay Penske‘s Webloid.”

Chief cop Michael Lewittes has been all over this particular news trail since Day One. He links to a head-spinning number of HollywoodLife items about an alleged Down Under “trial separation” between Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. Lewittes claims the entire coverage block was erroneous:

It was sad, really, watching HollywoodLies — er, HollywoodLife — try to cover up its previous misrepresentations with increasingly desperate “reports” that bore no resemblance to reality.

Through it all, Gossip Cop correctly said that nothing had changed between Pattinson and Stewart, and predicted that when Pattinson returned to California, he and Stewart would make HollywoodLife look foolish. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Gossip Cop Founder Narrowly Avoids Becoming People’s ‘Hexiest Man Alive’

Richard Horgan — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:30:56 +0000

First, we wrote about how People magazine embedded their 2012 “Sexiest Man Alive” issue into last night’s episode of Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23. Then, we wondered if a November 3 scoop by gossipcop.com “top cop” Michael Lewittes might hex Channing Tatum and prompt the magazine to opt for someone else. Today, with Tatum still strutting his stuff on the cover, we’re debating if mention of the actor in last night’s episode might have had something to do with the magazine’s decision to stick with the 32-year-old actor.

Lewittes’ SMA advance reveal was a huge media scoop, the latest in a long line of solidly vetted exclusives published by the three-year-old New York-based website. “We’ve had a number of scoops,” Lewittes tells FishbowlLA via telephone. “For instance, when no one even had Jennifer Lopez or Steven Tyler for American Idol, we went with it. Everyone thought we were crazy, and when it was announced a couple of weeks later, they realized we were right.”

Adding insult to injury, Gossip Cop posted the Tatum cover at 6:45 a.m. ET this morning, about an hour ahead of people.com, after grabbing a copy at a local newsstand. All in all, we’re pretty sure Lewittes’ nickname around the hallways of the magazine is nothing close to “magic Mike.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Did Gossip Cop Just Scuttle Channing Tatum’s Sexy Chances?

Richard Horgan — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 11:30:59 +0000

When we recently spoke to People magazine executive editor Liz Sporkin about next week’s cross-promotion on ABC-TV for the 2012 “Sexiest Man Alive” issue, she told us that the celebrity selected and their entourage are under strict NDA orders each year not to blow the publication’s newsstand cover. And that the magazine is fully prepared to switch honorees if such a leak is confirmed.

In the wake of gossipcop.com’s Monday exclusive that Channing Tatum will be announced next week as People’s 2012 SMA, FishbowlLA can’t help but wonder if this year’s sexiest runner-up is being hustled into service. It’s hard to envision anyone at the magazine passing on the top secret info, which logically leaves the printer or a member of Tatum’s inner circle.

Gossip Cop is very good about updating their items. At press time, there is still no word from either People or the actor’s camp.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

INTERVIEW: Michael Lewittes on Becoming a Gossip Cop

Richard Horgan — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:00:23 +0000

Long before e-mail bulletins, tweets and Drudge Report siren headlines, there were alpha-numeric pagers and pay phones. As veteran east coast journalist Michael Lewittes recalls, these now antiquated devices played a key role in one of his earliest moments of reporter triumph.

“One night I was out to dinner and drinks with New York’s police commissioner and deputy commissioner,” Lewittes (pictured) tells FishbowlLA. “Across the pagers came the message that Tupac Shakur has been shot (not when he was murdered, but a previous shooting).”

“I got the scoop,” he continues. “I had to drop a quarter in a pay phone to call the desk at the New York Daily News. Just a few hours later, I was on the subway — en route to work — and the riders were reading the Daily News and our rivals, the New York Post. But only the Daily News had the Tupac exclusive that he had been shot outside of a recording studio on the West Side in New York. And it remained a Daily News exclusive all day long on the radio and news broadcasts.”

“Naturally, today that story would have been picked up in a split second, spread across the globe, and no one would have known it was broken by the Daily News.”

The era of “hat tip” entertainment journalism is replete with theft, cacophonous forward-momentum and miraculously scrubbed errant reports. Which for Lewittes, who moved on from the Daily News to Cosmopolitan, the Post, US Weekly and Access Hollywood, frames his latest gig. Since 2009, he has been calling out bad entertainment reporting on his well-respected website gossipcop.com. And he has, in part, Perez Hilton to thank for this.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Gossip Cop Patrols Breaking Dawn Beat

Richard Horgan — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:00:48 +0000

It’s been a busy couple of Twilight-tracking days for Michael Lewittes, the former Access Hollywood and Us Weekly veteran who now runs GossipCop.com, a website determined to “Bust Bad Dish.”

First up was the Us Weekly-HollywoodLife.com report that an LA bar fight had almost broken out between Robert Pattinson and actor Jason Statham over the former’s onscreen and off screen love interest, Kristen Stewart. Not so, explained Gossip Cop over the weekend, pointing out that neither actor has been in L.A. for some time now.

Then came another R-Patz item to be debunked yesterday: a report by British tabloid The Daily Star that Pattinson and Stewart had gotten a little too romantic on a beach in Brazil, forcing authorities to intervene.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.