Trash talk

TMZ.com, the celebrity gossip site, is taking up politics - namely, legislation by Assemblywoman Julie Brownley that would impose criminal penalties for law enforcement officers who sell details or tips to the media.

But TMZ editors are a bit upset that Brownley would imply they paid for information about Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic rant. They write: "Brownley seems to think TMZ may have actually bribed someone to get the critical pages of the arrest report detailing Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade. Well, Brownley is an idiot."

The bill, by the way, was suggested by the L.A. County sheriff's department, after the name and photograph of one of Michael Jackson's alleged victims was released to the media. But TMZ and the Smoking Gun keep getting mentioned by politicians as sites that pay for information.

The Smoking Gun, which is owned by Court TV, often dips into the criminal and civil courts for information. Editor William Bastone told Political Muscle recently: "We follow the same ethical guidelines as the L.A. Times, the New York Times, the New York Daily News or CBS News. We do not pay, nor do we ever pay. She should not be lumping us in there and raising concerns about whether we do that."

The bill, AB 920, was approved by the Assembly and now heads to the state Senate.