Is Tabloid Trash a Thing of the Past?

June 26, 2008— -- For a while there it was touch-and-go. We as a country would walk past a newsstand in the airport or flip thorough a tabloid in line at the supermarket and collectively breathe a sigh of relief that our crazy country cousin Britney Spears was still alive.

You still hear sighs at the newsstand, but they're no longer sighs of relief. Now they are sighs of resignation.

Spears isn't the only one keeping us bored by staying out of trouble these days. Nearly all of the so-called bad girls who just several months ago graced magazine covers as they sauntered out of rehab, sashayed out of prison and stepped out of cars sans underwear have been bumped off the pages by dime-a-dozen reality show stars and politicians.

Last week, Us Weekly put Barack and Michelle Obama on its cover. And People, the top-selling celebrity magazine, bounced its most eligible bachelors for an elegy to Tim Russert.

When Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan made headlines for their antics and alleged addictions, it wasn't just the tabloids covering them but the mainstream media as well. If The New York Times and The Washington Post could mine gossip from the rags for stories, then, say the magazines, it is equally fair that they tap the mainstream press for political news.

With the likes of Eliot Spitzer, New York's former governor and accused solicitor of prostitutes; Jim McGreevy, New Jersey's former governor and "gay American"; and Larry Craig, the Idaho senator with the "wide stance," the lines between gossip and politics have blurred.

But when politicians and newsmen can steal the spotlight from Hollywood's heavyweights, one has to wonder if gossip is dead and what the future holds for the tabloids.

"If they were a baseball team, celebrity magazines are in their first long hitting slump of the past several seasons," said Keith Kelly, who writes the Media Ink column for the New York Post.

"There are a limited number of celebrities that people really care about, maybe a half dozen, including Britney and Lindsay," Kelly said. "There is a celebrity fatigue setting in. People are bored of the same people doing the same things, and there is no one new on the horizon."