Michael Lewittes
Michael Lewittes is an American journalist who is the current editor And Co-founder of GossipCop.com. He previously served as producer of NBC's Access Hollywood, gossip columnist and news director at Us Weekly magazine, a features editor for the New York Post, and a gossip columnist at the New York Daily News. He has been working in the entertainment industry for over the past 15 years, breaking some of the industry's most controversial stories in both print and on television. He is a graduate of Yale University.
Biography
Early Career
After graduating from Yale College, Lewittes began his career as Dr. Ruth’s personal assistant and researcher on her Lifetime Television show You’re on the Air with Dr. Ruth. He later joined the New York Daily News, where he wrote a daily gossip column, reaching millions of readers a week. Within the first few months of his arrival at the paper Lewittes broke the worldwide scoop of Michael Jackson’s questionable relationship with 13-year-old Jordan Chandler. During that time, Lewittes was also an on-air correspondent on E! Entertainment Television’s The Gossip Show.
After four years at the New York Daily News, Lewittes sold a script to Spin City, and was a writer for the VH1 show Pop Up Video before becoming the Articles Editor at Cosmopolitan Magazine. Lewittes then joined the New York Post as the Weekend Features Editor, where he was responsible for the paper’s entertainment coverage. At the same time, he wrote a rarely read twice-a-week column.
In 2001, Lewittes took over the reins as the gossip columnist and News Director at Us Weekly, where he broke a multitude of stories that have become part of the pop culture landscape, including the breakup of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake and their subsequent “Dance-off,” which was later parodied on Saturday Night Live. During his tenure at Us Weekly, not only did Lewittes serve as a commentator on numerous VH1 and E! specials, but he also had a weekly guest spot on CNN Headline News and appeared almost daily on a variety of shows, including Entertainment Tonight, Extra, and Access Hollywood, where he later became a producer. At Access Hollywood, he continued to break major stories, appear on-air as a correspondent, and successfully add to the growth of the show's website. He later produced the Dateline special with Britney Spears and Matt Lauer, which garnerred such tremendous ratings that NBC re-aired it the following night.
Lewittes himself has been the subject of many articles, such as a New York Magazine cover story on gossip columnists, and various television pieces, including an episode of CBS’s 48 Hours.
Gossip Cop
On July 29, 2009, Lewittes with longtime friend, Dan Abrams, launched GossipCop.com, a media watchdog site that patrols the gossip magazines, columns, and websites. The site is designed to measure how truthful the rumor is based on a 0-10 scale, (10 being 100% true). The site has been given press from People Magazine, Us Weekly, and The New York Times. It has been called a "Perez HILTON meets Columbia Journalism Review" or a "TMZ meets Smoking Gun."