Haven’t you heard? Britney Spears is on the road to recovery! Sure, you thought this was the case when she finally divorced then-nutjob Kevin Federline and made her David Letterman appearance, but now she’s doing Responsible Person things like showing up for work and keeping her hair in tact. And her guest spot on How I Met Your Mother? It’s getting rave reviews all around!

OK! applauds the effort: “Her performance was so good, she managed to wow not only the audience, but her co-stars as well.” People says Britney “took a major step in reviving her career.” Us Weekly is pleased to report on “her big TV comeback.”

And it looks like it’s only Star who can’t get on the happy train. Its new issue’s secondary cover story? Britney’s “Secret Meltdown.”

While Ashton Kutcher might think he’s punking the celebrity press with spam-happy Pop Fiction, most celebrity weekly editors say his stunts are fooling them.

After all, the tabloids have eyes and ears everywhere; you think J. Lo goes on vacation without her handlers first checking with Larry Hackett to see if it’s okay?

So while they might run photos of Paris Hilton and her “shaman,” they also report that the whole thing is a stunt. Luckily those celebrity blogs don’t have the resources of an always-accurate tabloid.

When this week’s People magazine hit this morning, Americans got their first $6 million peek at Jennifer Lopez’s new twin babies Max and Emme. So cute! So adorable!

And then when readers flip to the inside pages of the magazine, there’s another story about twins. Except this one is about a father who stabbed his twin daughters to death.

Awk-ward.

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Oh, Salon. The dek head to this story about the gossip industry – “Why the golden age of celebrity gossip is grinding to an end” – proves just how woefully out of touch even web magazines can be.

It is not “grinding to an end.” It has ground to an end. Maybe even last year.

“In the past decade, the rag trade had exploded, bringing vaguely shameful joy to millions of transatlantic travelers, subway commuters, grocery store shoppers and those languishing in doctors’ offices,” writes Rebecca Traister. “But now it seems a confluence of events has changed the manner in which America gobbles its vapid information about celebrities. […] So what has changed about America’s relationship to celebrity gossip? Lots.” We would’ve expected this from Sunday Styles, but not from you.

What else do we learn in this casual stroll through recent gossip history? Celebrity weeklies don’t need news, just photos; tabloid journalism used to rely on catching celebs off guard, but now fame whores like Paris and Nicole go the extra mile for the attention; reality stars now count as famous.

But we will give Traister credit where it’s due: She didn’t say the word “blog” once.

It’s been a slow news week for Hollywood, which means Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt are back to gracing the cover of Us Weekly and Brangelina are having problems again. It’s the same song and dance, really.

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We’ll admit it: We miss Crazy Britney. Not that we don’t want her to get better and have a huge comeback — we do. But this in-between stage is really boring, and we’re not sure how to handle it. The tabloids are obviously feeling our pain, as they choose to either ignore her or report ridiculously over-the-top stories about how she’s carrying a paparazzi fetus. Go easy on the mags; they’re still learning how to cope.

In other news, babies are everywhere — from Brit and Brangelina to Kate Hudson and Katie Holmes. And, as you may have heard, J.Lo delivered her twins recently. As you can imagine, she was a complete sweetheart during the delivery process.

Also this week: Speidi keeps popping up, Kirsten sets a rehab deadline and Barack tries to snag the highly-coveted tabloid vote.

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She’s a trainwreck, yes, but Britney Spears moves magazines. She’s got a whole economy devoted to her. But she’s also a very troubled girl, whether she’s got a drug habit, bi-polar disorder, or overprotective parents. (Hat trick?)

So when do the tabloid press cross the line, from driving the press machine she bought into, to invading her privacy and preying on an ill woman?

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If there’s one thing we learned from high school, it’s that women hate women. Maybe it’s evolutionary, but girls constantly put one another down, criticize one another and are jealous of any attention or success their peers get.

And unlike Calculus, we haven’t forgotten this lesson as we’ve gone through the world. Women are bitches. It’s just a fact.
Based on the ads for tampons and vaginal perfumes, tabloids are read mostly by women. So it’s no surprise that these magazines devote more space to struggling starlets than to actors who should actually be on suicide watch.

Sexism isn’t to blame, exactly. Women just get off on seeing beautiful women struggle. Serial drunk driver Keifer Sutherland can be saved. But Paris Hilton deserves what’s coming to her.

Sympathy doesn’t sell magazines. Schadenfreude, however, moves units.

We’ve been remiss on our Nip/Tuck watching, so recently we crammed four or five TiVo-d Dr. Troy splurges into a single viewing bonanza.

It just so happened that, while fast-forwarding through millions of dollars worth of commercials, we actually did catch a glimpse of a promo for the second season of Dirt, the Courteney Cox vehicle where she plays a tabloid editor a la Bonnie Fuller.

Given we stopped watching the show during the first season, right about when the crazy guy took the office hostage, we were only remotely interested in the show’s March 2 return.

Though we did want to see how writers would treat real-life Fuller’s veritable loss of power at her own company. Our guess: They would ignore it for a plotline only mildly more sexified.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, today F/X announced they are canceling any new production on ABC Studios’ Dirt, as well as channel cousin The Riches from Fox TV Studios, beyond the seven episodes of each churned out before the writers strike dried up the script well. So does that spell demise for Cox and her schizophrenic paparazzo pal?

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Americans walking through the check-out aisle do, in fact, care how much they pay to read exclamation points attached to photos of Britney Spears on the covers of tabloids. Which is why, when Bauer upped by $1 the price of In Touch and Life & Style under pressure from wholesalers (who get a cut of the sale), newsstand sales dropped by a third. But that was two months ago, and customers have, at least in part, been drawn back to the incessant Brangelina coverage.

But with rate hikes planned across the celeb weekly board, how will the others fare?

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You’re waking up to rampant grabs for exclusive news that Angelina Jolie is once again pregnant … with twins! Star magazine’s senior exec editor Martin Gould sent out a late-night email claiming its their exclusive and “PLEASE ENSURE YOU CREDIT STAR AND LINK TO THE STARMAGAZINE.COM” (o-kay!).

Photo agency Bauer Griffin is hyping its own website scoop: “Sources have told only Bauer Griffin Online that not only is the pregnancy rumor true, and it’s twins, but that Angelina was spotted at the OB GYN office of the doctor who helped Nicole Richie.” That doctor is Dr. Jason Rothbart, whose fees just doubled.

Us Weekly seems to be falling behind, with only a Jan. 16 item that quotes George Clooney shooting down rumors of the pregnancy. Clearly he’s a stupid moron!

Even the disreputable photo agency X17 is claiming an “X17 XCLUSIVE,” with the balls to say that “other news outlets have been speculating that Angelina Jolie is once again with child, but an X17online inside source confirms that she’s not only pregnant, she’s expecting twins!” How xclusive!

Most surprising, however, is neither TMZ.com nor People have yet to post a story about it. It’s as if they’re waiting for a confirmation or something! And Bauer’s Life & Style and In Touch, which last week published one of its regular Angelina “Pregnancy News” cover stories – which is suddenly more relevant than the “Britney Spears: ‘I’m Not Crazy’” cover that hit newsstands Wednesday – is also absent from the conversation. And they live for Brangelina!

And if you think the new MySpace Celebrity has any updates for you, well, you’re probably one of those people who never decamped MySpace for Facebook.

Unfortunately, the Wednesday newsstand won’t have any news of Heath Ledger’s passing. The tabloids closed on Monday, shipped today, and will appear tomorrow morning with immediately out-dated covers.

Update: Turns out there are losers today, too. NBC Universal’s Access Hollywood opens with nary a mention of Ledger’s passing.

If you thought Paris Hilton was famous for no reason, than you should consider the Sean Preston. Really, what has that kid done with himself to garner all those Life & Style covers?

Clearly, the judging of celebrities has not gone far enough. If L. Lo cared about the press, she wouldn’t be hooking up with three guys in one day. But what about the kids of famous people? Has the press done enough to ensure their future insecurities?

In the past, celebrity kids didn’t get hounded because magazines respected their privacy and avoided exposure that could compromise a family’s security, and there weren’t nearly as many tabloids desperate for fodder.

But it’s not just those weeklies that report like gossipy aunties on kids and pit them against each other in survival of the cutest contests. On the Web, coverage of celebrity kids has also hit a fever pitch, and the atmosphere is more vicious than a schoolyard brawl. Babies are branded “ugly losers,” and awkward teens get called out as “homely hippos.”

Look, if Shioh Pitt didn’t want to be famous, she shouldn’t have attached herself to Angelina’s uterus.

THE BLACK KETTLE CALLED Watch as competing tabloid editors take jabs at OK! for paying the Spears clan for Jamie Lynn’s pregnancy scoop, because they would never do such a thing. [NYT]

Papers like the New York Observer already allow advertising on their covers — so why not the more free-wheeling realm of tabloids? This week’s In Touch – Bauer Publishing’s cousin to Life & Style, which has its own ads-on-the-cover story – turned over its back cover to Chip’s Ahoy, which mocked up a typically sensational cover for its product, complete with In Touch’s logo. (Click image for larger version.)

The j-school profs are going to debate this “ethics breach” come fall, to be sure. Us? We want to know how much they paid for Mr. Irresistible’s tell-all.

We flipped through this new issue of Us Weekly once this afternoon, and it caught us off guard. We couldn’t tell what it was, though, but after our third page-by-page skim, it was clear.

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Oh Janice, how long will you keep up the fight against the competition? When your file cabinet marked “BAUER MISTAKES” empties? (Odds: Likely.)

As you can see, Janice is back on the attack against In Touch and Life & Style, who, according to this layout, can think of nothing but how bad Jen wants Brad back. Not so, says Us‘ carefully selected rebuttals.

But really, Min, why do this on the same week that you’re admitting the Janet Jackson “How I Kept It Off” cover – where Janet explains how she maintained her 60 pound weight loss, despite paparazzi photos showing otherwise – underwent a “cosmetic touchup”? It just screams of … oh, what’s the word? Oh, right: “Hypocrite.”

How does a hard-hitting newspaper like the New York Times get its feet wet in celebrity spectacles when it’s supposed to remain a high-brow publication (post-Britney Spears’ front page story)? By talking about the impact of celebrities and the tabloids that cover them, of course.

That’s why Stephanie Rosenbloom is all atwitter over young girls reading In Touch and Star, who are as knowledgeable about Paris Hilton’s DUI as they are about right triangles.

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We were, quite honestly, willing to let Janice Min’s fourth straight week of fingering the competition’s errors get a pass this week.

After all, if the Us Weekly EIC (fueled by the rage of Jann Wenner) is intent on making the other tabs look bad while ignoring her own mistakes week after week, who are we to stop the self-humiliation?

It was all fun and games in the beginning. Nobody was getting hurt, except maybe the Bauer tabs.

But in the issue that’s been sitting on newsstands for the better part of a week, Janice insisted on not just slamming her rivals at In Touch and Life & Style (and obvious punching bag OK!), but Star as well. (It’s worth noting, however, that the Star cover she chose was last week’s — helmed by new EIC Candace Trunzo, and not her former mentor Bonnie Fuller.)

And still, we thought, “Just let the lady rage!” That was, until, we read Howie Kurtz’s piece this morning.

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In a bold move to show Janice Min that they don’t give a shit what she thinks of their “reporting,” Life & Style and In Touch are both kicking things off this week with the obligatory baby rumor mill.

Meanwhile, Life & Style, Us Weekly, and Star search desperately this week to find some hard-hitting celebrity news. Unfortunately, they fail, and instead resort to luring readers with their default “We Have No Story” covers of beach bodies, and celebrity BMI’s.

Then, to round out this week’s “Talk of the Tabs,” In Touch can’t seem to get enough of Angelina, as the notorious childnapper graces the cover for the umpteenth time, while OK! gives us yet another profile on someone that we really don’t care about.

Let the games begin!

Intern Joe’s heartfelt analysis, after the jump.

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