feb 14, 2016 - THE DIGITAL DIRT How TMZ gets the videos and photos that celebrities want to hide.

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Interesting that this investigative in-depth article appeared so close to the date that Amber Heard secretly filmed Johnny Depp banging his kitchen cabinets. The implication in other publications was that this article was highly anticipated so obviously was a topic of discussion and also a veritable TMZ leak ‘how to’ guide for the uninitiated.

FROM THE NEW YORKER:
In the early-morning hours of February 15, 2014, Ray Rice and his fiancée, Janay Palmer, stepped into an elevator at the Revel hotel and casino, in Atlantic City. Palmer and Rice, a running back for the Baltimore Ravens, were arguing as the doors slid shut. When the elevator arrived in the lobby, Palmer was lying unconscious, face down, on the floor.

According to a former security supervisor at the Revel, nearly eighteen hundred cameras streamed video to a pair of monitoring rooms on the mezzanine floor. After guards responded to the incident in the lobby, several surveillance officers gathered and wondered aloud if a tape of Rice and Palmer could be sold to TMZ—the Web site that, since its inception, in 2005, has taken a merciless approach to celebrity news.

At around 4:30 a.m., one of the surveillance officers, sitting at a monitoring-room computer, reviewed footage from a camera that faced the elevator and, using a cell phone, surreptitiously recorded the screen. The officer then called TMZ.

It was the middle of the night in Los Angeles, where TMZ is based, so a message was left on the tip line. More than a hundred tips arrive every day. On September 29, 2015, an internal e-mail summarizing tips from the previous night referred to “info regarding George Clooney’s wedding,” “a video of a pro athlete getting attacked by a goat,” and “pictures of Meek Mill being incarcerated.” (The e-mail is one of many that were leaked to The New Yorker.) The tip line also recorded a claim that a major pop star “wears a fake booty in her music videos” and employs a “person who makes the fake butts.”

Many tipsters ask to be paid, and the site often complies. In October, 2014, TMZ received an e-mail that, under the subject heading “Drake at Stadium Club in D.C.,” announced, “I have the original footage. Please call me for price.” Fifty-nine minutes after a producer forwarded the tip to colleagues, TMZ posted a clip showing the rapper accidentally dropping thousands of dollars outside a Washington strip club. (In a message to a TMZ staff member, the source asked to be paid five thousand dollars.) Russ Weakland, a former TMZ producer, told me that he sometimes negotiated payments with tipsters who were anxious about releasing sensitive information. In 2009, for example, he took the call that led to TMZ’s breaking the news that Chris Brown had physically assaulted Rihanna. (The site subsequently published a police photograph of Rihanna’s battered face.) Weakland told me that his attempts to persuade sources to follow through with a leak often resembled a therapy session. “I’d have to talk people off cliffs,” Weakland said. “I’d tell them, ‘We’re not going to reveal our sources, because we want you to be a source for us again. We want you to trust us.’ ”

On February 19th, four days after the incident at the Revel, TMZ posted a fuzzy clip of Rice dragging Palmer’s limp body from the elevator. (According to a former TMZ photographer, the site paid fifteen thousand dollars. TMZ would not discuss payments, or other internal matters, but called this figure overblown.) The video, which went viral, had the phrase “TMZ SPORTS” embossed in the center—a branding practice known as “bugging.”

Investigators at the Revel, trying to discover who had taken the video, ascertained its timing by scrutinizing the clip’s audio track; while the phone was recording the footage, a general request for chips to be refilled could be heard on the casino intercom. The former security supervisor told me that casino officials also identified which computer had been used to review the footage. But Loretta Pickus, the former general counsel at the casino, told me that it could not be determined with certainty which employee had recorded the footage with a phone.

When the video was posted on TMZ, Rice’s attorney issued a statement, warning viewers not to make judgments until “all of the facts” emerged, adding, “Neither Ray nor myself will try this case in the media.” Three months later, Rice and Palmer held a press conference. Rice expressed regret, saying, “Me and Janay wish we could take back thirty seconds of our life.” What happened during those thirty seconds? Rice, the Ravens, and the N.F.L. did not seem especially determined to find out. The league suspended Rice for two games, but by early September he was preparing to return to play. Then, on September 8th, TMZ published a second surveillance video from the Revel. This one, bought for almost ninety thousand dollars, revealed what occurred inside the elevator: after the doors shut, Rice punched Palmer on the left side of her head.

[FULL ARTICLE IN THE LINKS]

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