The New Yorker's Expose on TMZ

The New Yorker just published an exposé about TMZ on Monday, titled "The Digital Dirt." The Hollywood Reporter breaks down six of the takeaways from the article:

TMZ Paid More Than $100K for the Ray Rice Videos

"According to a former TMZ photographer, the site paid $15,000 for the first surveillance video and almost $90,000 for the second, which showed the former Baltimore Ravens player punching Palmer in the head. TMZ received the tip from a surveillance officer working at the site of the incident, the Revel hotel and casino in Atlantic City, N.J., who recorded the footage on a cell phone. 'Everybody rats everybody else out,' a former TMZ employee tells Schmidle. 'That’s the beauty of TMZ.'"

Alec Baldwin Once Fantasized About Watching Levin "Die in My Arms"

"Baldwin is one of many stars who has been featured on TMZ for unflattering reasons (in 2007, TMZ posted a voicemail of the actor calling his daughter Ireland a "thoughtless little pig"), and he has far harsher words for Levin in "The Digital Dirt." 'There was a time when my greatest wish was to stab Harvey Levin with a rusty implement and watch his entrails go running down my forearm, in some Macbethian stance,' Baldwin tells Schmidle. 'I wanted him to die in my arms, while looking into my eyes, and I wanted to say to him, 'Oh, Harvey, you thoughtless little pig.'' He then adds, 'He is a festering boil on the anus of American media.'"

A Play-by-Play of the Justin Bieber Shakedown

"In 2014, The Sun published a video of Justin Bieber making racist jokes and TMZ announced that they had the damning video four years prior, but decided not to publish it 'in large part because he was 15.' However, reports began to circulate that the real reason TMZ sat on the video is because they were using it 'as essentially ransom' to get Bieber and his team to work with them and give them stories."

TMZ Was Almost Called Buzz Feed

"When he pitched bringing the spirit of the show to the Internet with Telepictures and AOL, site names "Feed the Beast," "Frenzie" and "Buzz Feed" were all considered before a Telepictures executive suggested "Thirty Mile Zone." Levin, writes Schmidle, suggested they use the abbreviated version of the old movie-industry phrase about the industry's L.A. boundaries: TMZ. In November of 2005, they were up and running."

One of TMZ's Biggest Freelancers Hustles at Craig's

"Of the staff working at the popular West Hollywood steakhouse, Blatt tells Schmidle, "These are the people who call me with stuff." The self-proclaimed hustler estimates that he has made more than $30,000 per year from TMZ by knowing the ins-and-outs of Hollywood hotspots like Craig's, the Beverly Hilton and the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills."

Levin's Chiropractor Partner Runs Celebrity Bus Tours

"[Levin] operates celebrity-spotting TMZ bus tours in New York and Los Angeles, which are managed by Levin’s chiropractor/partner Andy Mauer. "Some stars calls ahead with their location and then act surprised when the tour bus drives by," writes Schmidle in his report."

Read the full article at The New Yorker.