Chaunce Hayden, the Steppin' Out editor whose name regularly appeared in Page Six until he found himself embroiled in a false report about a Bam Margera and Lynsi Smigo sex tape, is the center of this Radar profile, which lists his various past careers: male stripper, car washer, failed punk rocker, bartender, swimming pool digger. Hayden acknowledges that nobody actually reads his publication, which is littered around New York and New Jersey, which might be a growing concern because until lately, it's been his single entry into getting his gossip items, and his name, in the press. Then the Post banned him (Smigo has since filed a $10 million defamation suit against him and the paper); MSNBC blacklisted him after a he caused a commotion on Joe Scarborough's show; he's persona non grata at ABC, when he went on-air to report Diane Sawyer had just shushed him; and Howard Stern would like to see him dead after Hayden said, on ABC, that Stern should be looked at for insider trading for allegedly leaking details of his then-impending move to Sirius. Interesting, though, that Radar is reporting all of this. Not because the gossip industry isn't the pub's territory — it is — but because paragraphs like this: CONTINUED »
Thirty percent of the people who had the time to answer an AOL survey selected Diane Sawyer as the morning anchor they most enjoy ""waking up with." She was followed by Matt Lauer (26%), Meredith Vieira (25%), Robin Roberts (10%), and CBS' Harry Smith (9%).
Sawyer also got the "Which host would make the best president?" vote, beating Jon Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Colbert, and Martha Stewart. [AOL via TVN]
Between stalking Eliot Spitzer at his apartment building and debating whether the media can use Ashley Alexandra Dupre's photos without permission, we've lost sight of one of the most important facets of the scandal: Diane Sawyer got a green light to talk about prostitutes on network TV.
The ABC anchor had been hoping to air her special on paid sex, but the network refused to give her the go ahead for Prostitution in America: Working Girls Speak, about Dennis Hof's Bunny Ranch whorehouse in Nevada.
No longer: Call girls are suddenly relevant again!
With an air date set for Friday's 20/20, Sawyer's project is a go. All it took was the resignation of a governor — Heidi Fleiss and Deborah "D.C. Madame" Palfrey, alas, just weren't enough.
"While we felt the incident in question was disturbing, it was the only scene of physical punishment in the hundreds of hours of footage that ABC News reviewed." That was the excuse the Disney-owned network gave in April 2006 when, after airing an episode of Primetime that showed footage of a teenage girl being beaten, viewers called and emailed in outrage about the network's decision not to step in to help.
That excuse was not good enough, at least for 20-year-old Kyle Nelson, then 15, who was pummeled by her stepfather in footage taped inside their home by ABC. Nelson is filing suit against ABC, the Walt Disney Co., network president David Westin, and even anchor Diane Sawyer, claiming they acted with "wanton and reckless behavior" and "gross negligence" by not alerting authorities to the abuse.
The Primetime episode, called "Stepfamilies in Crisis," aired the footage at least three years after it was shot; four days after it aired, Sawyer interviewed Kyle on Good Morning America, where she said she forgave her father.
But she hasn't forgiven ABC, which, her attorney Matthew Norfolk, will claim "immunity and a constitutional right provided under the First Amendment to broadcast or report to America what happened in Kyle's home."
Maybe. But then he goes off the deep end. CONTINUED »
While Good Morning America scored a sit down with Katie Holmes on Monday, Diane Sawyer's refusal to ask any questions about, um, SCIENTOLOGY, makes its softball interview look like a steaming pile of PR-friendly crap next to Today anchor Meredith Vieira's chat this morning with Tom Cruise unauthorized biographer Andrew Morton.
While GMA executive producer Jim Murphy claims there was no contract in place that kept them from asking the hard questions in exchange for access to Holmes, few believe their story. (For his part, Murphy claims it was he who ended the interview early, angering Sawyer who didn't get a chance to get to the tough Qs. Take one for the team!)
Morton's book – which isn't being published in England, Australia, and New Zealand because of stringent libel laws – received the expected level of criticism from the Church of Scientology. It also received a skeptic's view from Meredith, who challenged Morton's claims that Cruise is the "de facto" second-in-command, that daughter Suri is the spawn of L. Ron Hubbard, or that Tom Cruise is "dangerous" (a statement he backtracked on in the interview). What's this? Not accepting someone's statements at face value! Tres nouveau!
After the jump, the full video of Tom Cruise's Scientology video that got some of this buzz going. CONTINUED »
Upset that ABC's Good Morning America scored an exclusive interview with Barack Obama, CBS producers at The Early Show decided to tout their own Obama access and aired their interview with the presidential hopeful during the same timeslot yesterday.
Except the interview CBS broadcasttook place last month, before the Iowa caucuses, while Diane Sawyer's EXCLUSIVE!!! sitdown was, shall we say, more recent. GMA's reaction to TES's move? "Cheesy."
Making things more interesting, however, is the incestuousness of TV: Current Early Show executive producer Shelley Ross was the executive producer of GMA from 2000-04. Girl know how to play dirty against sitting GMA chief Jim Murphy. Insipid, sure, but brilliant.
This morning, in a sit-down with Diane Sawyer, former heavyweight Star Jones Reynolds explains that she lied about her gastric bypass surgery because she was "ashamed and scared," and that the reason she elected to undergo the extremely risky procedure was, "I didn’t want to die fat. Because that's not happy."
Instead, in an effort to secure herself a future of happiness, a determined Star set about marrying an ambiguously gay man, getting booted from The View, losing so much weight that she looks like a cancer survivor and pissing off her entire overweight fanbase (like Santa! And the entire state of Texas!) by insinuating that there's something inherently depressing about being fat.
• Maybe Diane Sawyer should quit this whole news anchor thing and become a social worker. Because the whole anchor-therapist thing isn't going as well as she thinks. [Defamer]
• Was Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey killed over an investigative story he was working on? [SH]
• Lohan reveals that she would never drink and drive. Just like you'd never strip in a B horror movie. [TMZ] CONTINUED »
He was a gladiator—brave, wildly funny, passionate about Dylan, Ena and his family—and completely in love with every new day. Film critic may have been his job description — what he really did was tell us about the wonder and heartbreak of life.
The wonder was to know him. The heartbreak, today.
All of us love Joel . Present tense. Without end.
–Diane Sawyer pays tribute to her friend Joel Siegel, who lost a long battle to colon cancer on Friday at the age of 63. [via E! News]
• Campbell Brown announces her pregnancy on Sunday's Weekend Today. ABC's Good Morning America to respond with a two-hour special in which Diane Sawyer weeps openly, and announces that her "biological clock is ticking."
• Rupert Murdoch is on the brink of closing deal with the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, he's not yet on the brink of getting the requisite Dow Jones' board/Bancroft family approval.
• Things that drive newspaper readers crazy include wet papers, grammatical errors and cartoons that are too pretentious to be funny.
• Microsoft pays well-known tech bloggers to recite its slogan, continues to shun notion that attractive people (or celebrities!) occasionally use their products.
• On the plus side, Diane Sawyer scored an exclusive with Tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker. On the minus side, Sawyer has started to develop 'cold and flu-like symptoms."
• Valerie Plame to sue CIA for right to publisher her memoirs. You know, because the CIA tends to frown on "Behind-the-scenes at CIA headquarters!" tell-alls
• As newsroom jobs fade, demand for them continues to grow, presumably because most English and Journalism majors had to pass/fail Econ 101, and hence know nothing of "supply and demand."
• Studies show primetime television has lost its allure. And no, this isn't another anti-Katie Couric piece.
• There's nothing quite like hearing Diane Sawyer muse about McG's "life-size" male nudes on a lazy Thursday afternoon.
• Time omits George W. Bush from this year's list of "100 Most Influential People In The World." However, Tyra Banks, Simon Fuller and Sascha Baron Cohen all still manage to make the cut.
• Screech has a nervous breakdown. Of the televised variety, of course.
• Cindy Adams defends Alec Baldwin, says his ex (Kim Basinger) has "a tenuous hold on reality." Kind of like a certain aging gossip columnist we know!
• And this just in, from Onion sports: "Manny Ramirez asks Red Sox if he can work from home." Fatty.
• Bruce Willis steers the yacht while his famous wife suck face with her younger, hotter move star hubby. Isn't Hollywood funny?
• Fort Lauderdale gays are instructed there's no parking in the Red Zone.
"He kind of gave me the news in cowardly installments," is how Dina McGreevey describes the coming out process of her soon-to-be ex-husband and Gay American Jim McGreevey on today's Oprah (tune in! ABC! 4pm!). That is, when he asked her to wear a football helmet and pads during sex, he didn't just blurt out "and by the way, I'm a homo!" like normal married couples.
The Big O, who scored an exclusive sit-down with Jim last fall, is the first to land a sit-down with wifey, whose new book Silent Partner is, conveniently, hitting bookstore shelves today.
But Oprah's dealings aren't stopping Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer from letting the good times keep rolling. She's invited Dina to come by tomorrow at 9am to tape a segment to further promote her book dish more on her failed marriage. But audience members are in for a special treat: We hear producers are planning an "interactive" segment.
In an email sent out yesterday, a GMA producer asked her contact list to submit names – "your moms, aunts, friends, neighbors?" – who are "well-spoken, outgoing women of diverse backgrounds, ages, marital status, religions, who would be part of an interactive audience."
Because the last thing this segment needs are a bunch of white ladies nodding along to Dina's tribulations. Black faces are needed, too. They know about dudes on the downlow.
CONTINUED »
• Billionaires continue to duke it out for control of Tribune. It's almost like watching a no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting Championship except with boring rich guys.
• Diane Sawyer beats out NBC, CBS to score the interview with Dina McGreevey that nobody else wanted.
• "At breakfast yesterday, Dean Baquet looked an awful lot like the next executive editor of the New York Times." Sounds like someone ordered Wheaties!
• The Edwards campaign may have the most Facebook, MySpace friends, but Obama looks "way hotter" in his profile picture.
• The reviews are in on Onion News Network: "Funny to read, not funny to hear from mediocre actors with bad toupees."
• Was Kiran Chetry a traitorous bitch? Or was Fox News simply overwhelmed by the cost of maintaining its "News Hotties" division?
• Meanwhile, CNN pleased with its brand-new hire, compares Chetry to primetime news anchor (and consistent third-place finisher) Katie Couric.
• MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to make a cameo on NBC Nightly News; world pretends to care.
• Sirius and XM merger described as imminent possibility; Howard Stern described as "too rich to care."
• Diane Sawyer jumps into super-reporting mode; insiders question whether she's looking to jump ship.
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