I admire the general idea of “
Gossip Cop” — which apparently seeks to serve as a kind of
Snopes for the celebrity gossip industry. I’m not sure there’s a huge audience for that. The Venn Diagram between people who follow celebrity gossip and people who care deeply about it being scrupulously factual, I would imagine, doesn’t include a great deal of overlap.
I like the way they include one-click-to-share social-media buttons at the bottom of their stories, enlisting readers in their valiant effort to counter this little world’s version of “fake news.” I’m not optimistic about the effectiveness of that approach.
As I said 10 years ago, it doesn’t work because “it attempts to apply facts and reason to people who are not interested in either facts or reason.”
Those who initially ate up the fake stories never seem to be grateful or relieved to learn the actual facts of the matter. Instead, they tend to be angry with you for ruining their fun.
