Lindsay Lohan out shopping in Los Angeles last week, a staple shot for TMZ

It was, as the Smoking Gun website put it, "a colossal screw up". TMZ.com, the celebrity gossip website which has grown massively in influence in 2009, published an "exclusive" photo which purportedly showed John F Kennedy lounging on a yacht with naked women along with a video and other confirmations from 'experts' attesting to the photograph's authenticity. But it was not to be. The photo was not of JFK and actually turned out to be one of many used in a 1967 Playboy spread. It would have been yet another massive scoop for the website that never lets the truth get in the way of a juicy story. The scandal bounty hunters will simply dust themselves off, hope everyone forgets, and continue to do what they do best ? trawl the Hollywood pavements, clubs, bins and toilets for the latest salacious goings on in celeb land.


TMZ is short for 'thirty-mile zone', the area that covers most of the studios in Los Angeles around the intersection of West Beverly Boulevard and North La Cienega Boulevard, which unions use as a geographical benchmark to gauge studio work rates for union members in the film and TV industry. It launched in late 2005 as a joint project between AOL and a subsidiary of Time Warner. Its aim was to harness Americans' increasing interest in celebrity, which was seeing audience figures for E! Entertainment rocket and the newly published Perez Hilton blog gain widespread notoriety, and also to create material to satisfy that appetite. It would not be enough for TMZ to just report on what was happening and be covered by other gossip outlets – it was going to generate its own content too.


The website vowed 24-hour coverage. When photos weren't enough, it practically invented video paparazzi, with the site hosting endless video galleries of celebrities stalked in and out of shops, petrol stations and airports. The advances in technology mean that being a paparazzo in Hollywood is an entirely entrepreneurial and individual sport, with the boss being TMZ, tabloid magazines, or whoever else will buy a shaking video or photo of Lindsay Lohan crashing her car (again).


This new culture has been sharply criticised by celebrities themselves, the police, and media commentators, leading to an often dangerous cat-and-mouse game around the boulevards of Hollywood, with celebrities very clearly marked out as prey. A typical video features a star, reluctant to engage, plodding along the pavement with their head down, coffee in hand, or bailing into an SUV and speeding off. Occasionally, they engage with the camera, answering inane or inappropriate questions hurled by the video paparazzo.


TMZ's managing editor is Harvey Levin, a former lawyer in his late 50s, who refuses to divulge much information surrounding the website. No one really knows how many people work there, or how much money is paid to sources for photos or documents which have on occasion revealed to be stolen. In 2007, TMZ flexed its muscles further, launching a syndicated television series, TMZ on TV, broadcast across various US channels including Fox. Along with that, TMZ hosts a live chat show on the website daily, which takes place in the office and concentrates on that day's stories.


Subjects like Britney Spears – who became so immersed in paparazzi stalking that she ended up dating one during her head-shaving custody-losing days – the Gosselins, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton have been godsends for the website. They're also fond of sports stars (and are indeed about to launch a new website solely dedicated to the tabloid goings-on of athletes), reality TV show stars, and often-drunk nobodies, just as long as they're doing something entertaining while the cameraman is waiting outside a club for someone more important to appear. Hence, a lot of videos of late-night coke-and-booze-fuelled violence in Hollywood.


While TMZ is often accused of (amongst other things) watering down celebrity, stretching the definition of 'famous' subject matter just to fill space, 2009 has been a year of bumper A-list scoops. On 22 February the site was brought to the larger attention of the international press and public when it obtained a police-evidence photo­graph of a battered Rihanna following an assault by her then boyfriend Chris Brown. Two days later, it showed it could do hard news too, reporting that the Northern Trust Bank in Chicago had blown millions of dollars from its federal bailout package on parties, concerts and gift bags. Politicians responded to the story, and Northern Trust CEO Frederick Waddell promised to repay the cash.


But it was on 25 June – when it scooped every international news network simply by calling Michael Jackson's death when no one else would dare – that saw it reach the top of the celebrity gossip reporting tree. If it wasn't before, TMZ would now be the go-to source for any breaking celebrity story, but as we've seen with its JFK 'scoop', the wariness with which more 'legitimate' news outlets respond to the website is probably quite wise.


TMZ scoops


28 July 2006: The site reports Mel Gibson (right)?was arrested for drunk driving and doggedly follows up on the story revealing details of his drunken and abusive conversations with police officers.


3 May 2007: TMZ breaks the news that Paris Hilton would be off to jail for driving on a suspended licence.


22 February 2009: TMZ obtains a police photo of a battered Rihanna. LAPD investigates possible sale of police evidence.


25 June 2009: The website calls the death of Michael Jackson, scooping everyone.


November/December 2009: Goes to town on the Tiger Woods infidelity story. Although it didn't break it, it gets the most juice.


20 December 2009: Breaks the news of Brittany Murphy's death (left).