It was old guard vs. new guard on Topic A with Tina Brown during a roundtable of gossip mavens Lloyd Grove, Liz Smith, David Carr, and Jessica Coen. When the topic turned to access, Jessica challenged Liz on "chummy-chummy celebrity love-fests":

Liz: I'm always on the griddle that I've got access and nothing else, but at least I've got access.

Jessica: - and access is great, but -

Liz: - and that's what I'm good at. That's all. So I just moved on from trying to compete with the real gossip stories and - I don't know, I think of myself more as kind of an observer in all the stuff that's going on...

Jessica (jockeying for position with Lloyd Grove): But how do we, I'm sorry - how do we - I win - how do we know whether or not to trust what you're saying? Not that you would be disingenuous, but, I mean, if I really want to know what Kevin Costner is like can I really believe he is as wonderful a dinner date as you say he is because you had a great dinner with him? You're so friendly with everyone, which is great, but in the same way, when do you start pulling your punches?

Liz: Oh, well I've had plenty of people who didn't think I was so friendly and I've had a lot of people you know like Sean Connery who once called me and told me he'd like to stick my column up my you-know-what...it was the best offer I'd had all week.

Come now, ladies, Waterworld wasn't that good.

Other highlights:

Michael Eisner, sender of love missives: Tina had this to say to Liz: "I know Michael Eisner's pretty angry at you at the moment. Michael Eisner is sending notes all over town about Liz right now." Where are these notes from Michael Eisner? We haven't gotten one and we like to think we're all over town. If you're a lucky recipient, please send it our way! FishbowlNY@mediabistro.com.

Lloyd Grove: Not as hep to the kids as Gore: Lloyd Grove admits that he has "no idea" who half these newfangled celebrities are, and "depends upon" his kids and his "young assistant" to keep him in the loop.

I know David Carr. You, sir, are no David Carr: Grove also claims that his column is "not so different from what David writes," to which Carr gives the immediate smackdown: "The bandwidth of discourse that you engage in is fundamentally different than what I do," he says, noting that the "the standards of reporting" are different ("I can't generally use blind sources"). Ooh, "bandwith of discourse." Feisty.

Topic A With Tina Brown: Camilla, The Royal Lubricant [Gawker]
A Gossip's Lament for a Vanishing Breed; In the Blog Era, Liz Smith Wonders if There's Room for the Pro [NYT]