Katie Holmes is a Starbucks addict, Eva Longoria Parker tweets porn and John Edwards has a love child.

Barry Levine, executive editor for the National Enquirer, is unconcerned with both the status of Tom Cruise’s mid-life crisis and the intrigues of the desperate housewife, but he is chomping at the bit to find out what will happen next with the John Edwards story.

In late 2007, Levine and his team published breaking news of John Edwards’ extramarital affairs, but no serious journalists — let alone serious people — bothered to give it a second glance. After all, the flimsy piece of supermarket tabloid is generally not regarded as a reliable platform for investigative journalism.

While the mainstream media ignored the allegations, the National Enquirer kept digging. They published several stories and pictures, but it never caught on.

Unfortunately for the rest of the media entities, what started as a piece of garbage story has turned out to be media gold.

Scandals take the prize. Just ask Monica Lewinsky or Eliot Spitzer’s hooker. But it’s unlikely the Enquirer will be winning any trophies anytime soon — certainly not a Pulitzer.

Here’s the problem: the serious journalism the Enquirer occasionally practices is masked by stories about celebrity cellulite. Most people can’t get past it. When a publication doesn’t take itself seriously, no one else can either.

However, other publications like The New York Times probably would not have published a piece like this simply because they did not have solid proof, even if they had tips into this story two years ago. The Enquirer took a risk. They believed in the story and ran with it. The way it was published looked like a bunch of mangled gossip, but the underlying foundation was real. If not through journalism awards, the Enquirer at least deserves some recognition for sticking to their guns. Levine showed some real cojones, and sometimes that’s what writing is all about.

Another problem is that the Enquirer regularly practices checkbook journalism. They aren’t afraid to admit it. It is not illegal to pay for a story. The ethics of the practice are widely debated, but there’s no hard and fast rule that prevents it. Checkbook journalism is like having a one night stand. You buy the girl dinner, take her to a movie, maybe even throw in a box of Swedish Fish and then you do the deed. You didn’t pay her to have sex with you, but she sure did get compensated. The point is, a lot of news organizations practice checkbook journalism, but in a way that isn’t as obvious as Levine’s form. Sources are given free plane rides and dinner, but that isn’t considered in the same realm as writing a check.

The form of journalism is changing before our eyes. I would never say the work — if I can even call it that — The National Enquirer regularly publishes is equal to that of The New York Times, but what I can say is the way journalists are getting the story is changing, and the stories that are relevant and interesting to readers are changing, too. If this supermarket read is the only publication that can get a story like this, and they can get the attention of consumers with their other stories, they deserve the recognition. Most publications are one or the other — entertainment or news — but as our society evolves, having both seems to be the key to success.

The Pulitzer Prize is probably not for The National Enquirer. It just doesn’t fit in. Even if the prize board did believe that the ethics behind the publication were sound, Levine is getting called on a technicality — his publication is not a newspaper, which is a requirement for consideration. Most of the content regarding the John Edwards scandal was also printed in 2007 and 2008, another technicality he won’t be able to forgo.

Nevertheless, the investigation put into the John Edwards story by The National Enquirer is the real victory, whether it gets formally awarded or not. Currently it seems that the easiest and fastest way to get a story on paper is to quote other newspapers, but the journalism that makes a difference is scrupulously researched. Perhaps this unconventional magazine will show journalists that no matter how different or how small you are, there’s a chance that you can catch the right story if you do the work.

Jaimie Chapman ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.