Richard Johnson: PageSix.com 'Missed the Boat'

The cool kids get relegated to the foyer. At The Atlantic's panel, "The Britney Show: The Rise of the 24/7 Celebrity News Cycle," held at NYU earlier today, Richard Johnson, Page Six's irrepressible (and immaculately dressed) leader admitted the failed attempt to turn the NYP's gossip column into a standalone Web site was too little, too late. "PageSix.com didn't work because it wasn't around two or three years earlier. It missed the boat," he said, in part blaming TMZ.com and X17online.com, whose co-owners Regis and Brandy Navarre also sat on the panel, for the site's demise. The panel coincided with The Atlantic's profoundly detailed cover story that explained the relationship between beleaguered pop star Britney Spears and the paparazzi who profit from her every move. David Samuels, the article's writer, moderated, while other panelists included Bonnie Fuller, who kept looking to her publisher in the front row for talking points, and NYT Magazine columnist and critic, Virginia Heffernan (who's also Samuels' wife). The Navarres' site, a spin-off of the couple's X17 paparazzi agency profiled in the article, posts as many as 10 items about Britney each day, Brandy told the crowd. One of the site's first breaks came when Sam Lufti, Spears' best friend at the time, called Navarre directly with information about the pop star. "He knew we wouldn't edit or censor what he was saying," she said. "He knew he could trust us in that way." The panelists unanimously agreed that celebs were increasingly trying to control their own reputations by forging relationships with the paparazzi, with varying degrees of success. "Lindsay [Lohan] and Britney took a cue from Paris [Hilton], but they didn't know how to handle it," Navarre said. "They didn't think about it." Heffernan, an online video expert, likened paparazzi videos to full-length flicks. "These are just indie films made by underpaid runners and gunners," she explained. "The best of these films have a total arc," citing the Britney head-shaving incident as a prime example of a star's fourth act. According to the panelists, celebrity journalism isn't dying. "I tell my photographers to shoot the back of the stars," Regis said. "People want to see everything." His wife mentioned that she's currently trying to "build an archive" of Miley Cyrus photos, a star she and Regis believe to be the next big thing. "A few years ago, we made a decision not to go to Venice High School where Britney was shooting [the video for] Hit Me Baby One More Time. That was a bad decision," she admitted. There you have it, folks: Paparazzi, coming to a high school near you.

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Richard Johnson: PageSix.com 'Missed the Boat'

Noah Davis

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Noah Davis