There is plenty of scandal still around.. but the stalwarts of celeb reporting are slowly vanishing.. The latest is E! NEWS.. the bold exclamation point and the series of gossip stories about the rich and famous.. It is now a bygone era. It will end and air its final broadcast on September 25..
Seth Abromovich from The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER sarcastic laments the demise of E!..
Launched in 1991, its innovation was that it took showbiz as seriously as CNN took politics and crime. In doing so, E! News helped popularize the modern fixation on a side of Hollywood once meant for industry eyes only — everything from celebrity bad behavior to box office grosses.
E! anchor told the REPORTER:
“There was that time, like 2008 to 2012 — the Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears era, going to Kitson on Robertson,” Kennedy reminisces. “It’s almost like an untouchable time in entertainment news, and I was just lucky to be a part of it.”
Some of his most memorable stories involved celebrity deaths. “I think we did 48 hours of live coverage for Michael Jackson,” Kennedy recalls of the pop titan’s fatal propofol overdose in 2009, during which he worked for E! News as a correspondent. “I’ll never forget arriving at the scene at UCLA Medical Center after he died. Thousands of people showed up.”
