The nine month review for 2011, part 4: The most popular celebrities of 2011 so far.

If you look at the list of most popular celebrities of 2011 in terms of cover stories on the supermarket rags, right now Jennifer Aniston has 54 - way more than one a week - while her nearest competitors have not even crossed the 40 threshold.

But this is a bookkeeping illusion more than an actual lead. Kate Middleton's stories are split into solo appearances (24 so far with another in the pipeline) and stories labeled Wills'N'Kate, any story which mentions both her and her husband. Combining those, she is this year's gossip superstar with over 60 mentions on the covers.

And just to add insult to injury, if we combine BrAngelina stories with the stories that only mention Angelina Jolie and not Brad, Jen's nemesis is dominating her yet again.

And just to continue with the theme of attractive women wearing very little clothing, Kim Kardashian is just behind Jennifer Aniston for fourth place on the list when you combine her solo stories and the Kim'N'Kris cover appearances.

If Jen and her new beau stay together, next year I'll make a Jen'N'Justin label so she won't feel left out.

The nine month review for 2011, part 3: Naughty vs. nice numbers.

The gossip rags change their spots very little in the latest Naughty vs. Nice numbers. OK! is still slightly nicer than People, and the Three Wicked Step Sister tabloids still lead the way in percentage of negative stories. The only noticeable change is that it's no longer a race for nastiest tabloid, as the Enquirer is leaving both the Globe and the low rent Examiner in the dust. Here are the numbers.

1. OK! 65% down from 68%
2. People 65% unchanged (64.8% rounded to nearest tenth of a percent)
   
3. Us Weekly 54% up from 53%
4. Life & Style 51% unchanged
5. In Touch 34% unchanged
6. Sun 29% up from 28%
7. Star 23% up from 22%
8. Examiner 14% down from 15%
9. Globe 12% up from 11%
10. Enquirer 9% down from 10%
    

The Sun would be more negative if I reported on every gloomy prophecy, but I only publish the ones that have verifiable dates.

The nine month review for 2011, part 2: Birth predictions

The supermarket rags love to say some celebrity is pregnant. Who cares if it's actually true?

I care. That's the general point of this blog, to keep track of the stuff that can be verified.

Let's go back six to nine months, January, February and March of 2011. If a gossip rag said a woman was pregnant back then, she should either have had the baby by now or be so far along that she can't deny it.

Here are the true tabloid pregnancy announcements from those months. Some of them were mentioned several times.

Kate Hudson (x 5)
Mariah Carey (x 4)
Victoria Beckham
Natalie Portman (x 2)
Kim Zolciak

Here are the false tabloid pregnancy announcements from the same time period.

Khloe Kardashian (x 2)
Kourtney Kardashian
Angelina Jolie
Queen Latifah
Carrie Underwood
Katie Holmes
Kendra Wilkinson
Jennifer Aniston
Kelly Preston
The bearer of Todd Palin's love child

If we ignore how many times each pregnancy was mentioned and instead focus on the number of women who were said to be pregnant, five of them were and ten of them weren't. That's a batting average of .333, which is actually much better than any other three month period in the past two years.

Still, this isn't as tough as hitting a pitched baseball. The press should be able to do better than one correct story out of three when it comes to whether a woman is pregnant or not.

Tomorrow: the popular celebrities and the naughty vs. nice numbers.

The nine month review for 2011, part 1: Death predictions

Time flies when you are remaining alive, and most of the people who the gossip rags have marked for death this year have done just that, remained alive. Let me list the "successes" for the vultures of the tabloid press first, because the list is short.

These people were first marked for death in 2011 and they died in 2011.

Peter Falk
James Arness

These people were marked for death in 2010 and they died in 2011.

Anne Francis
Miss Elizabeth Taylor

And here is the list of new people who are allegedly near death's door according to the rags who predict death, which for the most part are the Three Wicked Step Sisters, the Enquirer, the Globe and the low rent Examiner.

Chuck Berry
Paula Deen
Larry Fortensky
Miss Maureen O'Hara
Glen Campbell
Jack Klugman
Miss Angela Lansbury
Miss Kitty Wells
George Jones
Roy Clark
Donna Fargo
Dick Van Dyke
Steve Jobs
Amber Portwood
Charlie Sheen
Barbara Bush
Barry Manilow
Chaz Bono (dangerous diet, but not really)
John Edwards (suicidal)
Kendra Wilkinson (suicidal)
Casey Anthony (either suicidal or she's going to be murdered)
Ali Lohan (too skinny)
Taylor Armstrong (too skinny)
Reese Witherspoon (had a concussion)

And then there's the list of people mentioned before the beginning of the year that got mentioned again.

Kirk Douglas
Miss Doris Day
Regis Philbin
Miss Loretta Lynn
James Garner
Billy Graham
Bob Barker
Jerry Lee Lewis
Nancy Reagan
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Aretha Franklin
Whitney Houston
Bill Clinton

This means for this year, 2 correct predictions and 37 people who are still alive, some with health problems that could be life threatening, many with the promise of many years to come. 2 of 39 is a pathetic batting average of .051, and the overall numbers are 10 of 92 for .109, over twice as good as the numbers for last year but still incredibly bad.

Eventually, if they stop predicting, they have to bat 1.000. It's stunning how bad they are at this verifiable stuff, which calls into question all the stuff they write we can't verify.