No typing, all casting

The Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair fabrication scandals may have damaged journalism, but those only really affected the small portion of news consumers who read. For us picture-looking news consumers, what I've discovered may be far more disappointing. After a series of phone calls to secret sources, I found out that most of the celeb-mag "editors" who appear on TV don't actually edit, write or in any way help produce the magazine. Instead, Star, US, Life & Style, In Touch, InStyle and People find attractive people and pay them to go on TV and talk about articles as an "editor at large" or "national correspondent" or "television editor." At other magazines, those first two titles refer to an editor or writer who works from home, and the last means an editor who works on the section of the magazine about television. Editors who spend all day talking to TV producers are properly called Graydon Carter.

I called Star magazine editor-at-large Julia Allison to confront her about this scandal, and she told me to calm down, especially because she was shopping: "The people who do corporate strategy are understanding the power of three or four minutes on a cable network or a morning show. It's the best publicity you can get. Oh, that is the cutest dress I've ever seen. Oh my! Oh my God! I can't handle it. Anyway, with the advent of 24-hour news networks, you have an incredible amount of air time to fill."

Allison argued that there are too many TV news outlets -- CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the "Today" show, "Good Morning America," "Access Hollywood," "Entertainment Tonight," E!, VH1, the TV Guide Channel -- to fill with segments from real magazine reporters, who are busy at their important job of standing all day outside Britney Spears' house. Plus, being on TV requires skills most print reporters don't have time to develop. Skills such as knowing where to get super-cute dresses.

So instead of doing the normal Star magazine work of walking up to maitre d's and claiming to be looking for a famous friend, Allison calls up TV producers to suggest segments on stories she didn't write or edit. She functions as Star's one-person publicity department. She's also making connections in hopes of landing an on-air job at one of the channels. Her predecessor at Star, Jill Dobson, scored a gig as a Fox News Channel entertainment reporter. It is now possible to succeed at journalism without bothering with any journalisting.