Here’s how a typical morning unfolds in the buzzy newsroom
It’s 7:30 a.m. at TMZ, and its leader, entertainment titan Harvey Levin, is holding court — literally. He stands atop a lectern perched above his buzzy newsroom sipping from a sherbet-colored water tumbler as producers try to persuade him to consider their story, arguing ferociously that what they had been chasing in the darkest hours should be featured on TMZ’s top-rated Fox show that night. Pitches are barked —Howard Stern is back, or is he; Cardi B is running around in disguise; there’s an update on the ball-snatching “Phillies Karen” — and debated. All of it is filmed as b-roll for TMZ’s sprawling network of online and television entertainment.
Levin is 75 but doesn’t look it. His wiry frame is roped with muscle from daily workouts at the gym. For a guy who gets up at three in the morning and is usually the first one to arrive at his empire’s massive headquarters, he still vibrates with the same frenetic energy as the hungry young journalists assembled under him. “I saw a great murder on Dateline,” Levin announces to the bullpen, prompting a question from the crew: “Did the wife do it?” Levin laughs. “No, the ex-wife.”
On this September morning, TMZ’s most recognizable celebrity-watchers who have become celebrities themselves, old-timers like Charles Latibeaudiere and Shevonne Sullivan and Charlie Neff , along with some of the newer faces, Courtney Doucette and executive producer of TMZ Sports Michael Babcock as well as a slew of others, banter heatedly about the day’s show, kind of like a family at a boozy holiday party. Even the show’s general counsel, Jason Beckerman, weighs in. There’s clearly no mystery swirling around how TMZ’s sausage is made.
This is a collection of dogged, well-sourced, shoe-leather journalists who come to the bullpen armed with fat digital Rolodexes of phone numbers for the city’s real influencers, the movers and shakers who run Los Angeles, cops, emergency room personnel, agents, doorkeepers, bartenders, Uber drivers. Anyone and everyone who recognizes a story.
Watching Levin’s hand-selected team banter about the day’s scoops brings to mind a line from the film L.A. Confidential uttered by Danny DeVito’s Sid Hudgens, a tabloid journalist who exposes Hollywood’s dirty secrets: “Off the record, on the q.t. and very hush-hush.”
