The Post, and then the riposte

I love gossip. I like to read gossip, and I don't mind writing it, when it's true.

I broke the important story of how Tuesday Weld was related to Bill Weld. I was not at all embarrassed when I reported on former Boston University president John Silber's volcanic reaction upon learning that his buy-10-get-one-free card had expired at Espresso Royale. Silber used to deride the Globe columnists as ''gossip writers." Gosh, John, we can't all be Kant scholars, OK?

To me, gossip is synonymous with intimate detail. I would argue that James Boswell's ''Life of Johnson" is the most wonderful gossip in the English language, because you learn little, true details about a great man. There is an equally rewarding, gossipy moment in Erica Jong's fiendishly awful memoir, ''Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life," when novelist Anthony Burgess's widow warns against writing too much. ''Writing shortened my husband's life," Mrs. Burgess says. ''Life is more important than writing."

Gossip is front and center now because of Gossipgate, a delightful scandal pitting an aggrieved, deep-pocketed California billionaire against a writer for the New York Post's Page Six, the Rosetta Stone of the gossip world. Angered by a spate of negative coverage, supermarket magnate turned investor Ronald Burkle sought succor from Page Six writer Jared Paul Stern. Burkle says that Stern tried to charge him several hundred thousand dollars in return for favorable coverage, and excerpts from their videotaped encounter seem quite damning.

Stern says Burkle's meeting was part of a ''plot hatched up by them to entrap people at the New York Post, specifically at Page Six, who they felt had information they did not want printed in the newspaper. This was a preemptive strike and an attempt to silence us." Stern's lawyer Joe Tacopina raises the possibility of his own strike: ''We will be pursuing all of our legal options, including suits for slander and libel, as a much more complete picture of Mr. Burkle's tactics comes to light."

The immediate fallout from Gossipgate rained down on the Post, never viewed as a modern-day Temple of Athena where journalistic ethics are concerned. Follow-up reporting revealed that Page Six capo Richard Johnson and a colleague accepted gifts from people they wrote about. Rupert Murdoch's men on the take? What will we hear next? That Fox News is not fair and balanced? Hey -- they're not Kant scholars, all right?

As for Burkle's avenging himself on the Post, all one can say now is: It may have seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm sure the Post will be veeerrrrrry careful when and if it next writes about Burkle. But now the purportedly reclusive Ron Burkle is getting written up in newspapers all over the country, and, frankly, it's not the kind of attention one would welcome.

Burkle turns out to be a boon companion of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the man who asked Bill to pardon Friend of Burkle junk bond king Michael Milken. A huge donor to the Democratic Party, he helped jawbone the California Legislature into passing a law that would keep portions of his divorce records from public view, according to the Los Angeles Times. (A California judge said the proposed legislation violated the First Amendment, and the bill is on hold. Burkle has said he was not behind the bill.)

I can't see how it benefits Burkle to have people reading statements on California assemblyman Ray Haynes's website criticizing members of the state's huge and influential pension board for (1) accepting contributions from Burkle and (2) investing in his Yucaipa Company, characterized by Haynes as a ''shabby investment." Likewise, how did it help Burkle to see Stern take the helm of the widely read Gawker website over the weekend, larding it full of untoward items about the ''greasy grocer" and the ''paranoid party boy billionaire"?

''This was never about getting good publicity," explains Jason Booth, a spokesman for Burkle. ''It was about defending his reputation."

Ironically, Burkle is hoping to get into the newspaper business, as a bidder for 12 former Knight Ridder newspapers now on sale. One can safely predict that they would be gossip-free. ''Newspapers that continue to go down the road of tabloidism . . . risk losing their special role in our democracy," Burkle recently wrote. And they risk becoming incredibly boring to read.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.