Review
Newspaper and magazine gossip is one of the great obsessions of the British (and Americans), as much denounced as it is devoured. In this enjoyable book, Roger Wilkes relates its history on both sides of the Atlantic, from Defoe to Diana, from Regency London, where muckraking sheets were hawked in the streets, to Clinton's America and Blair's Britain. We meet gossip luminaries such as Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, who founded The Tatler and The Spectator in the early 18th century; Walter Winchell, whose column in New York was the first to expose Frank Sinatra's Mafia links; Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, harridans of Hollywood, and the legendary Tom Driberg, who wrote the William Hickey column in the Daily Express, and whose own nocturnal exploits might have filled a thousand gossip columns. We revisit the indiscretions and peccadilloes of Prince Edward, philandering heir to Queen Victoria; the Scott/Thorpe affair, which gave the world a new word ('woofter') and of course, Monicagate, a whispering campaign begun by Matt Drudge, an LA-based computer nerd with Republican sympathies. Former BBC journalist Wilkes shows how gossip columns function as a prism through which we construct a warts-and-all picture of the times (in which case the times haven't changed much). Gossips can also wield considerable power, as John Profumo, Jeremy Thorpe, Cecil Parkinson and Bill Clinton have found to their cost. Wilkes takes his readers behind the scenes to look at the sometimes complex mechanisms by which gossip is disseminated, the influence it continues to exert, and the symbiotic relationship that exists between the press and politicians. By affecting a tone of scholarly seriousness, Wilkes enables the reader to have his cake and eat it. Yes, this is an informative work of history, but it is also in love with its subject. And why not? After all, as Oscar Wilde remarked, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. (Kirkus UK)
Product Description
Newspaper and magazine gossip is a potent and sulphurous brew - much derided and much devoured - that long ago became part of the daily diet of millions. The raw ingredients are scandal, rumour, glamour and scurrility, and the best is shot through with (preferably illicit) sex, disclosure and danger. How and why has this happened, and where will this obsession lead us? "Scandal!" takes us from Regency London, where muck-raking scandal sheets were hawked in the streets, to the modern free-for-all where tabloid and internet gossip rule. From the madness of King George to the madness of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica, this book goes behind the scenes to look at the mechanisms that disseminate gossip and the power and influence that it continues to exert.
