leven months ago, In Touch magazine ran a "Breaking News" cover about Jennifer Aniston that declared "JEN LOOKS PREGNANT!" In January, another cover blared: "FRIENDS WORRY BRITNEY'S PREGNANT." In April, Katie Holmes got the treatment: "KATIE LOOKS PREGNANT AGAIN.
" In Touch wasn't alone on the bump-watch front. In the space of one year, after Angelina Jolie gave birth to baby Shiloh, Life Style, owned by the same company, announced four times that Jolie again looked pregnant, was trying to get pregnant, was wearing loose-fitting clothing or nixing foods that pregnant women avoid. In 2005, Star said Jessica Simpson was "Finally PREGNANT!
" In 2006, OK! magazine screamed: "J.LO TO BE A MOM!
" Yet during this blizzard of cover headlines, these stars had given birth only to bogus stories. While breathless hype is hardly unknown in the celebrity-rag business, a rival's finger-pointing campaign is rare indeed. Us Weekly recently started razzing the competition with such weekly spreads as "How They Faked the Baby 'News.
' " "When we put it all together and saw how many times they've played this game of trickery, it was pretty shocking," says Us Weekly Editor Janice Min. "Would you continue to buy laundry detergent that didn't work week after week?" Clearly, this is not simply an exercise in selfless investigative sleuthing.
In fact, Jann Wenner, the media mogul who owns Us Weekly, ordered up the attacks. Min, whose factual track record is not unblemished, concedes that her attempt to tarnish the other magazines amounts to "a business decision." Editors at the other magazines refused to address the details.
"Did I miss the memo from Us Weekly saying they want to edit everyone's magazines now? They should concentrate on their own," Richard Spencer, editor of In Touch, said in a statement. Richard Valvo, a spokesman for Star, says the magazine "would never willfully or knowingly print anything that we deem not to be true.
" He calls it "amusing" that Min "would single out publications in the same category as Us Weekly" in light of her own record of corrections. (More on that below.) At stake in the sniping is market share in a burgeoning business that almost seems to outstrip the available supply of celebrity couplings and uncouplings.
At the end of 2006, Us Weekly was selling 1.75 million copies a week, a 40 percent increase over three years earlier. Star's circulation was 1.
5 million, a 26 percent jump in three years. But the most dramatic increases were among two magazines launched in the last five years: In Touch (1.3 million), up 151 percent since 2003, and Life Style (753,000), up 157 percent during that period.
People remained the industry leader with sales of 3.7 million. The formula is fairly simple.
Stars must be seen falling in and out of love, cheating or being cheated on, dieting or blimping up, bouncing back or melting down. Weddings, divorces, pregnancies, births, drug problems and rehab stints are huge. "It's clear what the editorial agenda is - to spin fantasy under the illusion of news," Min says.
But wouldn't phony stories catch up with the publications that peddle them? "There is a market of women out there who just like looking at the photographs," says Min. "I also think a lot of people just haven't caught on.
" A review of the Us Weekly allegations shows that the other magazines have repeatedly published stories and speculation that turned out not to be true, but that they often leave themselves some wiggle room with words such as "may" or "looks" or "told friends." A recent Star "exclusive" on Cruise and Holmes was headlined "DIVORCE!," with the subhead "Katie in tears.
" So far, no split. A Life Style cover this month on Jolie was headlined "WHY SHE LEFT BRAD" (she hasn't). The story said Jolie had told an unnamed friend that "it's over," and the "biggest reason" was Brad Pitt's continuing relationship with ex-wife Aniston.
A year ago, Life Style said Pitt had told Aniston he was going to marry Jolie and that "Angie visited . . .
Karl Lagerfeld" for her wedding gown. In Touch also keeps marrying them off. They remain unhitched.
OK! trumpeted the news last month that "J.LO MARC SPLIT!
," reporting that Jennifer Lopez "and her husband of just under three years, Marc Anthony, 38, had called it quits." Well, not so far. And these magazines rarely, if ever, run corrections.
Us Weekly patrols the same celebrity precincts but tends to word things more carefully. A cover this month on Cruise and Holmes was headlined "NO WAY OUT/In love with Tom, but confined by Scientology, a conflicted Katie struggles to find happiness." Rival executives, blaming the crusade on jealousy over their circulation growth, are happy to point to Us Weekly's mistakes, although not with their names attached.
Before Holmes and Cruise had their baby, Us Weekly reported she was having a boy. Oops: A girl arrived instead. "We have made reporting mistakes, like any news organization," Min says.
"We have corrected them in the magazine. When it does happen, we're mortified." Us Weekly also reported that Cruise and Holmes had bought an estate near London.
You needed a magnifying glass to read the correction. There are also creative ways of dealing with a scoop that falls flat as a souffle. After a big "VINCE PROPOSES!
/Jen Says Yes" cover - which Min insists was true, including the selection of a ring - Us Weekly had to confront the apparent lack of an engagement. The solution was a follow-up story: "VINCE BACKS OUT.
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