Which gossip magazine is the best?

Superficiality, envy, cattiness, schadenfreude, mockery, and melodrama: I normally try hard to deplore them all—except when I'm buying a celebrity gossip magazine, in which case they are just the ticket. Between tabloids and glossies, there are seven weekly gossip magazines from which to choose my opiate. Tabloids (the National Enquirer, the Globe, the National Examiner) are printed on newsprint and run not only sensationalistic stories about celebrities (the majority of whom reached the apex of their fame decades ago), but also pieces on the particularly bad, bizarre, or heartwarming behavior of "real people." They are padded with health tips, crosswords, and photos of readers' babies and, unlike the more legitimate magazines, will pay sources for gossip about the stars. Glossies (Us Weekly, In Touch, People, and, after a recent extreme makeover, Star) are printed on shinier, thicker paper stock. With the exception of People, they focus exclusively on celebrities—primarily youthful ones—and their tone is more upbeat, irreverent, and less credulous than their tabloid counterparts.

In the last few years, two developments have changed the landscape of these magazines. The first is that the tabloids (the Star included) have all come under the ownership of a single company, American Media Inc. The second is that, while for decades respectful People and the lurid tabloids were the only games in town, cheeky UsWeekly and its Johnny-come-lately clone, In Touch, have begun crowding in on the market share and making the other magazines rethink their strategies.Bonnie Fuller, the editor responsible for the Us Weekly approach—an interest not so much in the dark secrets of the stars as in how banal their lives can be, how they're "just like us"—was even wooed away to the American Media empire and charged with remaking Star in Us' image.But, although all the weeklies are converging on younger, hipper celebrity coverage, there remain important differences in prose styles, perspectives, scopes, and degrees of turpitude.

I spent the last four months reading all of these magazines every week in an attempt to pick the one (OK, two) worth buying regularly. A welcome byproduct of the testing was that I finally exhausted my seemingly limitless ability to wring enjoyment, diversion, and procrastination from the lives of the stars and am looking forward to reading something without pictures and exclamation points, preferably a dry philosophical treatise.

My Criteria

Reliability (10 points): This category was, admittedly, somewhat hard to score. Are Demi and Ashton planning a June wedding? Is Sandra Dee drinking herself to death? I have no idea. The best I could do was dock points when a magazine published something that, in the course of the last few months, was subsequently proven false. (Kate Hudson gave birth to a boy,not a girl, In Touch!) I also frowned on particularly misleading cover questions—the answers to Star's "Justin: Cheating on Cameron?" and "Nude Apprentices? Will they pose for Playboy?" are both revealed inside to be, simply, no—and, worse, misleading cover statements. (The Globe's cover story on John Kerry's "Sex Disease Scandal—It could keep him out of the White House" turns out to refer only to the fact that he may have had an STD while he was serving in Vietnam.)

Exclusives (10 points: 5 for scoops, 5 for access): Will a magazine be the first to bring you the latest happenings or, at least, the latest news on old happenings (e.g., the Enquirer's recent piece—"The Passion of Mel!"—about a woman with whom Mel Gibson allegedly had cheated on his wife—in 1988)? Separately, will celebrities actually grant it interviews?

Subject matter (10 points): Magazines get points for breadth of focus—Star covers The O.C. starlets and Tina Louise of Gilligan's Island—and percentage of things covered that are inherently (i.e., to me) interesting: couplings, feuds, scandals, reality TV, "where are they now?" features = interesting; losing weight, having babies, makeovers, whether J. Lo is going to return Ben's ring = not.

Story quality (10 points): Even if I haven't heard about or don't care about the subject of the story, is the prose sensationalistic, wide-eyed, or saucy enough to keep me reading? (For the record, this is not the prose I seek in a non-celebrity magazine.) And is the piece a well-reported exposé I can sink my teeth into, as opposed to something I could skim in a checkout line?

Value (10 points): All of these magazines have flashy headlines designed to pull the reader in, but will it reward more than a casual flip-through? I factored in the presence and interest level of regular features—from fashion coverage and reviews to advice columns and contests.

Fun (10 points): Is the magazine juicy, playful, and irreverent, but still gripping?