Rob Shuter says Today made him call gossip 'celebrity buzz' before its tabloid makeover

Rob Shuter’s best accusation against Today is not that the NBC morning show has become tabloid. It’s that Today has been tabloid for years, but used to make him put a tiny blazer on the word “gossip” and call it “celebrity buzz.”

On The Megyn Kelly Show, Rob Shuter turned a segment about Savannah Guthrie pressing Jennifer Lopez on rumors involving Brett Goldstein into a small media-class autopsy. The corpse, naturally, was dignity. Shuter’s point was clean and mean: morning TV wants the clicks, the celebrity heat, and the slightly shameless human pleasure of celebrity gossip, but it still wants to dab its mouth with a cloth napkin afterward.

When I when I used to go on Today show once a month, once every two weeks, I was told I went on to do gossip. I went on to do celebrity gossip. But the rule was I couldn’t say the word gossip. I had to call it celebrity buzz, buzz.

That is the whole game, right there. Not a programming revolution, a vocabulary swap. “Gossip” is what happens on page six, in group chats, and at the hair salon. “Celebrity buzz” is what happens under flattering studio lights while everyone pretends the segment arrived wearing a press pass.

The snobbery is the scandal

Shuter is not making a puritanical argument, which is why it works. He is not clutching pearls about Savannah Guthrie asking Jennifer Lopez about romance rumors. He is a gossip columnist. He likes the product. He thinks the product is delicious. What annoys him is the laundering operation around it.

Don’t pretend you are high and mighty when we’re all shoveling the same sand product. And this product is delicious. I’m proud to hold my hand up like I’m in AA and say, “I love celebrity gossip. My name is Rob Shuter and I’m a gossip columnist.”

There is a little self-serving gloss here, of course. A gossip columnist benefits when gossip gets rebranded as a form of cultural literacy. Shuter even cites a study, not named in the clip, claiming higher intelligence correlates with wanting more celebrity gossip. Convenient? Absolutely. But he’s also poking a real bruise in morning television. These shows have always depended on tonal whiplash: international crisis, movie star banter, weather, discount cookware, all before lunch.

Megyn Kelly picks up the same point with less media archaeology and more acid. Her read on Today is that the show can’t act scandalized by gossip when parts of it now feel like a cheerful mall kiosk with better cameras.

If you’ve seen that show lately, it’s basically QVC. Like the third hour is like, “Here’s a bunch of cheap from China. Click on the QR code to buy and we get the feeling You know what I mean?”

The towel segment is the tell

Then Shuter adds the detail that makes the whole thing sing, a story about a celebrity friend who allegedly finished a Today interview and watched the show pivot straight into commerce. It is hearsay, yes. It is also spiritually perfect. Morning TV has never been pure church. It is church, brunch, airport lounge, and clearance rack.

Now we got to keep the lights on. Let’s sell some towels.

That line is funnier than any solemn media-ethics panel because it names the trade honestly. The same show that wants to appear above gossip also has to fill hours, chase attention, and move product. Shuter’s verdict is harsh, but not wrong: Today didn’t discover gossip. It discovered that pretending not to do gossip was getting in the way.

So yes, let Savannah ask the celebrity rumor question. Let the QR code bloom in the corner. Just stop acting like “celebrity buzz” is wearing a monocle.