The Press: Putting the Papers to Bed

Having rattled most of the skeletons in Hollywood's closet and even planted some hand-fabricated new ones, five-year-old Confidential (circ. 3,269,954) started blabbing its own secrets. In a green-and-gold Los Angeles courtroom, where bimonthly Confidential ("Tells the Facts and Names the Names") and its sister-in-smut Whisper ("The Stories Behind the Headlines") are being tried on charges of criminal libel and conspiracy to publish obscenity, prosecution witnesses gradually yielded answers to a question that has long vexed Hollywood and intrigued scandalmag readers. How do the bedroom-beat boys and girls get their stories?

In Confidential's...