Octo-Mom’s story breaks, RadarOnline is born

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The N.Y. -based website, backed in part by the National Enquirer folks, has made a name for itself with blanket coverage of the Whittier woman’s brood.

Journalists like to talk about ‘owning’ a story. But the people at RadarOn line.com have practically stamped their corporate logo on the forehead of Nadya Suleman, the ‘Octo-Mom’ from Whittier whose shockingly prolific reproductive habits have made her a media sensation.

They really, really love to talk about Octo-Mom over at RadarOnline. In fact, since the news of her octuplets first broke in late January, the website has published 56 items about her, an average rate of nearly two per day. Five stories landed on Friday alone, including an exclusive video interview with Suleman, who revealed that she gained 130 pounds during her pregnancy: ‘I’ve never in my life been so big and swollen,’ she said.

Suleman’s mother, Angela, who appeared alongside her daughter in Friday’s video scoop, was, according to a family attorney, paid $40,000 to appear in a much-discussed RadarOnline video earlier this month in which she assailed her daughter’s child-bearing as ‘unconscionable.’ So you might say that RadarOnline, which is based in New York, is bringing its own version of fiscal stimulus to a select group of California residents.

Most Americans had likely never heard of RadarOnline before now. But the site almost instantly made a name for itself with the Octo-Mom story, generating huge pickup on NBC’s ‘Today,’ CNN and elsewhere (traditional print publications, including this newspaper, have also delivered scoops that the TV networks have ended up following). RadarOnline thus seems to be trying to duplicate the success of TMZ, the celebrity gossip source that broke news of Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic tirade a few years back and then extended its brand into a syndicated TV series that stars Harvey Levin and some pretty blond kid who looks like the lead in the old WB version of ‘Tarzan.’

Read the full story here.

-- Scott Collins

(Photo: RadarOnline.com has done 56 stories on Nadya Suleman since her story broke in January. Credit: radaronline.com)

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