“The rejection of celebrity-based journalism in Britain with the decline of red-top newspapers is being echoed in the States,” writes The Guardian's Roy Greenslade.

One of the popular U.S. supermarket check-out weeklies, Star, is facing problems. According to sources familiar with the magazines, “the title will not make its $1.5 million rate base for the first half of this year, and is considering another rate-base reduction, to as low as $1.2 million, for next year.”

Sales have dropped for years since reader began to switch to People magazine or Us Weekly, or simply turn away from buying printed magazines since they can read thousands of Hollywood gossip tidbits online.

Star has been selling only 600,000 copies on the newsstand per week, plus about 600,000 subscription copies, since editor-in-chief Candace Trunzo took over the title in April this year. Star's Florida-based owner – American Media Inc. – announced in April that Star would lower its rate base to $1.35 million for the second half of this year.

Visit Roy Greenslade's blog