Partly this is a matter of marketing - insider gossip makes better TV than budget arithmetic.

And the growing emphasis on insider gossip, he said, focuses too much attention on "government as entertainment."

How could a glamorously challenged person such as yourself fit in among the glitterati, without the insider gossip and fashion tips we are about to dispense?

And a core group of midlevel studio executives send him fairly juicy insider gossip about casting and films in development.

Regular Gotham features include celebrity interviews, roundups of stars' New York real estate dealings and insider gossip.

The insider gossip, obviously garnered from gold-plated sources (but not from Clinton, who even out of office declined to see him), is always entertaining.

For the most part, the volume simply rehashes events already recounted by newspapers and television, embroidering them with a filigree of insider gossip.

There was a newsletter full of insider political gossip that was "a guilty pleasure," he recalled.

She was known for having the insider gossip before others, and for having a rare understanding of the personalities and complex rules that govern the Senate.

But something besides trade secrets and insider gossip is going on in "Hype and Glory."