In case you missed it, Liz Smith, the Grande Dame of Dish, one of the original reporters of the rich and famous, has noticed a big change in the industry she spearheaded. "Gossip is now intensely vitiated," said Liz during an interview with CNN’s "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz. While speaking on losing her beloved New York Post column, Liz, at 86, reflected on the proliferation of too much gossip — thanks to the Internet.  

KURTZ: There is so much gossip now, I mean, you were part of a long tradition going back to Walter Winchell, but now you have magazines, TV shows, websites, blogs, US, In Touch, OK!, Gawker. Has that kind of drained the mystery out of the rich and famous?

SMITH: Boy, I’ll say. And the rich and famous and the big stars, they are really — they have disappeared. You — name me a really big star, there are only about 25 of them now. But when I was in the Winchell era, there were really famous people, and you didn’t have to have them explained to you.

When people said Katharine Hepburn or Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, people knew what you were talking about. I think gossip now is intensely vitiated because there is so much media. There are so many people gossiping.

So it has lost its meaning. It’s like anything in excess. You get so you don’t care about it. I have — I am now a philosopher of entertainment.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZ: Well, maybe that explains why I meet some of these glossy magazines, and I don’t know who half the people are. Are gossip writers — particularly with so many of them chasing the remaining celebrities and sort-of-famous and wannabe famous — are they used and manipulated by the "Brangelinas" of the world, the big stars and their PR people?

SMITH: Well, at least those big people that are using them, like "Brangelina," they are using them for a good cause. They’ve just learned that if they want to raise money for this or that, they have to expose themselves to some extent.

I think the real problem is that there is no control on the way people gossip now. There are no editors, publishers, lawyers aren’t — the Internet is just wild. So these kids who are running gawker.com or Perez Hilton, they are very clever and they deserve a lot of credit for making fabulous careers for themselves.

But I don’t believe a word any of them write.

Rest assured, though, reader: You can believe every word Liz writes on wowOwow.com. Liz will be posting daily dish on the site she helped found, wowOwow.com. Click here to receive instant e-mail alerts the moment Liz Smith posts!

Click here to read the full transcript and watch the interview.