Smoking Gun website fires off more rounds

Smoking Gun editor William Bastone won't say how he got his hands on such a sensitive item. But it's the kind of nugget that has transformed The Smoking Gun from another novelty website to a must-see, bookmarked destination for gossip columnists, investigative journalists, and ordinary folks with an appetite for the travails of extraordinary people.

Bastone, a former crime reporter for The Village Voice, acknowledges that some readers like The Smoking Gun (www.thesmokinggun.com) for its emphasis on celebrity sins, while others laud it as a model of investigative grit. What is clear is that with more than 2.7 million visitors last month, a growing media profile, and spinoff ventures in the book, magazine, and television worlds, the six-year-old website is proving that voyeurism is a hot commodity. Tonight at 8:30, Court TV (which bought the site three years ago) is airing a Smoking Gun special unveiling the most "bizarre and shocking" stories of the year. What makes The Smoking Gun unique is its reliance on documents -- arrest records, contracts, affidavits, lawsuits -- to create a universe in which the rich and famous are humiliated, ordinary citizens are out of control, and lawyers laugh all the way to the bank. It is here that we (1) learn that a "Joe Millionaire" contestant starred in bondage films, (2) view the mug shot of musician George Clinton after his recent cocaine bust, (3) read an affidavit chronicling Rush Limbaugh's drug abuse, and (4) get the tale of a Pennsylvania mom who stripped at her son's birthday party.

By making documents the focus of its reporting, "we locked ourselves into the format," Bastone says. "It kind of sets us apart from every other dopey website you run across." And The Smoking Gun has generated interest from many journalistic quarters.

"I'm a big fan of the site," enthuses MSNBC gossip columnist Jeannette Walls. "I think this is sort of the Internet at its best. It's journalism at its best. They are able to present this information in an unfiltered way."

"Smoking Gun is snicker, it's showing people in their most embarassing, humiliating moment," says Al Tompkins, who teaches investigative reporting at the Poynter Institute, a media think tank. But, he adds, "I hope it reminds us of the incredible wealth of documents that are available to journalists if they'd just look." Says Brant Houston, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a nonprofit, and an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism: "It's fascinating to read. It's a good teaching tool."

With a staff of four -- Bastone, managing editor Daniel Green, and reporters Andrew Goldberg and Joseph Jesselli -- The Smoking Gun does its share of searching databases and court records. But it also relies on dime-dropping cops and lawyers for tips. The staff found out about Clinton's arrest, for example, via an e-mail from a law enforcement officer who witnessed the musician getting booked. "We know a fair number of people," says Bastone modestly.

In recent years, the operation has expanded into new frontiers. After publishing "The Smoking Gun: A Dossier of Secret, Surprising and Salacious Documents" a few years ago, Bastone and company are working on a second book for Little, Brown. Tonight's Court TV program will be the second "Smoking Gun TV" special. And the staff regularly provides documents and stories to People magazine.

In a well-timed spinoff of the US military's deck of cards featuring wanted members of the Iraqi regime, The Smoking Gun is thinking about producing its own deck of mug-shot playing cards. (One of the site's popular features includes arrest photos of the famous and infamous, ranging from Lee Harvey Oswald to Wynonna Judd to Bugsy Siegel. Suffice it to say that Siegel does not bear much resemblance to Warren Beatty, who played him in "Bugsy.")

Bastone is eager to point out that "if all we had is celebrities busted for DUI, it would get kind of tired." And the site does contain more serious material, such as a British document detailing the methods of torture employed by Saddam Hussein and the defamation suit filed against California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by a woman who accused him of sexual harassment during the campaign. But sensational celebrity foibles are The Smoking Gun's stock in trade. And the hits just keep on coming.

On Monday, the site posted the police report detailing a rock 'em, sock 'em rock 'n' roll encounter at a Detroit club between Jack White of the White Stripes and Jason Stollsteimer of the Von Bondies. The handwritten report detailed the conflicting accounts of the fight, including Stollsteimer's complaint that White "pulled him to floor and proceeded to punch him on right eye approx 7 times." In some circles, that's a news coup.

The Smoking Gun is "performing a valuable service," says Richard Johnson, editor of the New York Post's Page Six gossip section. "There's a lot of reporters who don't know how to get those documents. They don't teach that at the Columbia journalism school."

Mark Jurkowitz can be reached at jurkowitz@globe.com.