IT’S once again pay-for-play at Star magazine.
Star Editor-in-Chief Candace Trunzo has made it no secret that she wants to take the celebrity glossy back to its old dirt-digging days as a supermarket tabloid – and she’s doing so by paying sources for stories.
“We do pay for information,” said Trunzo, who took over the magazine last year when the high-octane Bonnie Fuller was booted upstairs to serve out her days as the editorial director of parent company American Media.
“I make no qualms about it,” said Trunzo. “I think all the celebrity magazines do it.”
Perhaps, but most mainstream publications frown on the practice. People magazine, the category leader, has always insisted it doesn’t pay for news, which would be strictly against the policy of parent Time Inc. But the magazine has paid astronomical prices for exclusive photos.
Star is even more direct. Right underneath Trunzo’s editor’s note in the current issue is an unbridled pitch with dollar signs around the edges.
“Star Wants the Scoop,” reads the copy, which lists an 800 number and an e-mail address for the scoops to be sent. The person answering the phone said the magazine would pay anywhere from $100 on up for information.
“I believe it is one way to get some of the great stories we get,” said Trunzo, who added that she’s been running the small ads and paying off sources from the moment she took over last April.
When asked how much the magazine pays, Trunzo said, “Lots.”
Trunzo is a supermarket tabloid veteran. One of her greatest scoops was paying to set up a sting operation that snared gridiron great Frank Gifford while he was cheating on wife Kathie Lee Gifford in 1997.
In the current issue, Star says that Britney Spears and her paparazzi pal Adnan Ghalib got married in Mexico.
Trunzo declined to say if the magazine paid for a snitch to provide the tip that led to the story.
When Fuller took over the magazine a few years ago and moved its from newsprint to glossy stock, she insisted that the magazine was going to differentiate itself from its tabloid sister publication The National Enquirer and stop paying for stories.
“That was Bonnie,” said Trunzo.
However, one insider said that even in the Fuller era, the magazine continued to pay for stories.
Fuller could not be reached for comment.
On the financial front, the pay that Star has been doling out hasn’t put a dent in the company’s bottom line.
In the fiscal third-quarter results released yesterday, American Media said it swung to an operating profit of $17 million for the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with a year-earlier loss of $302 million. The company said its revenue rose 7 percent, while its expenses decreased 7 percent.
The company said it had double-digit ad page increases at Shape, Star and Men’s Fitness.
His story
Plaxico Burress, the New York Giants wide receiver who caught the winning touchdown pass in the Super Bowl earlier this month, is going long in the publishing world – and it seems he’s headed for a big score.
Burress is believed to be the first Giant out of the gate with a book proposal after playing a key role in the team’s stunning upset victory over the New England Patriots.
At least five publishers are in the hunt for a memoir that will tell his life story, including his growing up in Virginia Beach, Va., emerging as a top high school athlete who landed a football scholarship at Michigan State, receiving All American honors and being a top draft pick with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“Emphasis is clearly going to be on his stay with the Giants and this season,” said agent Ian Kleinert at Objective Entertainment.
Burress will forever be remembered as the man who caught quarterback Eli Manning’s winning toss in the end zone in the final moments of Super Bowl XLII, sending the Giants to a 17-14 victory.
He is working on the story with Michael Garafolo, sports writer at the Newark Star-Ledger.
Because most sports books have limited appeal, one source said he expects the bidding to reach only the mid-six-figure range at best.
“To do a Super Bowl book, you have to have it out right away,” said one publisher who passed on the project when the bidding was still at $100,000.
Kleinert said he hoped to wrap up the action by today.
Giants linebacker Michael Strahan had a book out at the start of the football season called “Inside the Helmet: Life as a Sunday Afternoon Warrior” from Gotham.
So far, it has sold about 50,000 copies, but Publisher William Shinker said he would add two chapters on the Giants’ Super Bowl season when the paperback comes out.
Publishers said the top Super Bowl book would undoubtedly be one from Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning, but so far publishers we’ve spoken to said they have not seen a proposal.
Chaos
The staff upheaval continues at Portfolio magazine, which some are dubbing “Fort Polio.”
One source said it is bleeding money at the rate of $5 million a month and is on target to become the most costly launch in magazine history.
What’s more, the newsstand sell-through rate is said to be only about 15 percent, with some issues selling only about 25,000 copies a month.
And in the latest sign of staff turmoil, Editor-in-Chief Joanne Lipman’s trusted No. 2, Deputy Editor Amy Stevens, is out of the picture for the next few months, starting a three-month maternity leave any day now. Since the start of the year she’s been working from home on the West Coast.
Sources say Lipman is already mourning the loss of her trusted deputy, who had worked alongside her at The Wall Street Journal.
Lipman, via e-mail said, “Of course we’ll miss [Amy] while she’s on maternity leave, but we’re fortunate to have a very strong bench here. Things are going quite well.”
Others, however, said that Stevens was never much of a magazine maven and was brought on board only after Lipman started feuding with her first deputy, Jim Impocco, whom she ousted last August.
“She was more like Joanne’s geisha,” said one source. “Joanne was comforted by her presence, but she never had much input in terms of content.”
The other deputy, Blaise Zerega, who resigned as managing editor but was later convinced to stay on staff as deputy editor out of San Francisco, is already working out of the San Francisco office. That means that both of Lipman’s top deputies are 3,000 miles away from their boss.
And in a sign that the arrangement may be getting to her, Lipman earlier this year was said to have emerged from one meeting muttering, “I need a No. 2.”
A host of others have been forced into the role without taking the formal title.
Jacob Lewis, the managing editor who was drafted from The New Yorker, and the recently promoted Articles Editor Kyle Pope are unofficially filling the role, along with another former Journal hand, Ed Felsenthal, who is still officially listed only as a consultant.
Grumbled one insider, “There are already a lot of No. 2s on the magazine. What they need is a real No. 1.”