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#3 (9:50 AM) -- At about the same time every morning, Rob and the other big-cheeses around here get a collection of emails featuring quick clips of paparazzi footage shot over the past day all around town. Since we have a policy of staying away from invasive paparazzi video or stills, more often than not, it ends up that we just sit around and marvel at what kind of shameless degradation these guys will go through to shoot 25 crappy seconds of, like, Paris Hilton sauntering out of a spa or Mischa Barton at Starbucks or something like that. And sometimes your jaw just drops at the unbelievable nerve these guys have.

Today, it was video of Heather Locklear and a group of kids that got everyone going - more specifically the line of questioning this particular guy was firing at Heather as he filmed her walking to her car. Something along the lines of “Hey, Heather! Have you spoken to Denise yet? Are you guys talking again?” - all yelled in full earshot of the children, one of whom was presumably Heather’s daughter. It really was gross and, to Locklear’s credit, she never broke stride or acknowledged their presence.

Needless to say, we’re not using the footage.

#2 (8 AM) --

Oops!

See that mention up there in the 6:55 edition of today’s notes about Clive Davis talking all about Whitney Houston? Yeah, well, you’re going to have to wait to see it. Time issues, promotion potential…whatever you want to call the reason, Clive’s take on the whole “how messed up is she?” situation is being pulled from the piece and held for the time being. But don’t worry, it’s an interview worth waiting for, which means it will definitely see the light of day soon. And you’ll get plenty of notice when it comes on.

#1 (6:55 AM) — “Grey’s Anatomy is moving to Thursdays!”

“Britney put her kid in the car seat the wrong way!”
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“That dude’s hand got chopped off last night on Prison Break!”

Yes, these are the types of exclamation point-filled mini celebrity-news conversations we are paid to have every morning at the crack of dawn.

I guess if you work in a post office, your day starts with chatter about the mail. If you work in a butcher shop, you psyche yourself up by talking all about meat. We talk about things like Whitney Houston and whether or not she’ll ever record an album again. And then we jump into a day’s work knowing that we are fully prepared. Sometimes it seems just the slightest bit weird to me.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love my job and I am in awe of what we do here on a regular basis. And keep in mind, if there was a market for it, you could produce 22 minutes and 30 seconds of daily news on just about anything in the world. But the fact that half a dozen people set their alarms for 4:30 every single morning so they can race to the office - shortly followed by another 200 and something hard working folks - to honestly and earnestly put in a hard day’s work delivering news about the entertainment world is a very interesting phenomena, any way you slice it.

That said, today’s show is another one worth waking up early to create. There’s more big news coming out of the network upfront presentations in New York; Clive Davis, the man responsible for Whitney Houston’s career, is talking honestly about her issues and how concerned he is for her; Christina Aguilera is basically posing nude in GQ; and Elmo the Muppet is blatantly hitting on Shaun Robinson in full view of Jamie Foxx.

As for the picture out there of Britney’s babysitting forward in a car seat at 8 months old… if you’re really concerned, break out the baby-scale. If the kid is pushing 20 pounds, there’s no story here. If he’s not, I’m sure he will be soon. Bottom line, not our story.

- Mathew Baxt

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