Famous for reporting scandals about Paris Hilton and Michael Richards, TMZ.com is facing some gossip of its own. And it can be summed up like this: TMZ is in turmoil.

Publicly, you may have read the site's general manager, Alan Citron, just jumped ship to Buzznet, the music-based social network site that also runs Celebuzz, its celebrity and pop culture spin-off. (Citron and Buzznet's founder, Tyler Goldman, are friendly from their days at Movielink.) And Gillian Sheldon, TMZ's supervising producer and unofficial No.2 to chief Harvey Levin, who has been with the site since launch, has also left, for another Telepictures unit.

Are these two high profile departures pure coincidence? Time Warner would like you to think so. But you're smarter than that.

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Kudos to Ryan Seacrest brand extension the E! channel, which is making no secret of its programming mantra: Our stars must go to prison. At PaidContent's EconCeleb conference — where the paparazzi panel bitched at each other over celebrity rights and Harvey Levin explained his moral compass — E!'s CMO Suzanne Kolb weighed in on shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians, The Simple Life, and Living Lohan*, where it's common practice for talent to spend some time behind bars. "A lot of our talent have gone to jail and we’ve been very clear on that." And that wasn't even the most amusing line of the whole panel. That award goes to Access Hollywood executive producer Rob Silverstein: "Access Hollywood follows the same guidelines that NBC News follows when it comes to reporting any news story." Wait, so that means checkbooks are kosher, right?

THIRTY MILE ZONE, AND THEN SOME Harvey Levin might be angling for another TMZ spin-off with People's Court Raw, where users select two videos two battle against each other in debate. That said, his D.C. gossip site never got off the ground, and TMZ sidekick sites like Star vs. Star are pretty much a waste of Internet space. [Portfolio]

Will TMZ's television spin-off suffer the same fate as the gossip brand's never-forumlated D.C. off-shoot? [P6]

Earlier: Will TMZ’s TV Try Bomb Just as Badly as The Smoking Gun’s?