Gossip columnists Mary Ann Akers and Michael Isikoff got married in January, 2007, in a quiet ceremony with no press coverage.

In the 90s, Isikoff's favorite sources were Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Linda Tripp, and Lucianne Goldberg.

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/18/toobin/

. . . Jeffrey Toobin's "A Vast Conspiracy" is a lucid, level-headed and ultimately convincing recounting, from a largely legal perspective, of what is sure to be regarded by future historians as one of the weirdest and unloveliest episodes in American history.

. . . The title of Toobin's book is taken, of course, from Hillary Clinton's famous statement on the "Today" show that

"the great story here ... is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."

Toobin, who is no Clinton apologist, points out that her statement ignored her husband's culpability, that many of the "conspirators" didn't know each other and that when she made her statement there was no evidence that any of them had broken the law. And indeed, he finds little evidence of illegal activity throughout the affair. Nonetheless, he believes that her "charge had -- and has -- the unmistakable ring of truth. The Paula Jones and Whitewater investigations existed only because of the efforts of Clinton's right-wing political enemies. . . "

. . . The story, in short, is of how a host of ideologues, zealots, ax-grinding hustlers, professional Clinton-haters and useful journalists connived to keep not one, but two flimsy legal cases against the president of the United States alive until, in a dramatic climax out of Aeschylus by way of Larry Flynt, the protagonist's tragic inability to keep his pants up almost brought him down.

. . . Finally, there is Isikoff, the former Washington Post and current Newsweek reporter to whom Toobin grants the dubious honor of being one of only seven "Key Players" (the Clintons, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg are the others) listed in the front of the book.

Toobin accuses Isikoff of being an uncritical water-carrier for the anti-Clinton forces. He reminds us that there were "three important moments in the case when Clinton's enemies used Isikoff to launch attacks about the president's purported sexual behavior: First, Cliff Jackson had given him the exclusive with Jones; second [Jones attorney] Joe Cammarata had set the reporter on the trail of Kathleen Willey ; now, finally, Tripp and Goldberg were giving him the biggest story of all [Lewinsky]."

Toobin writes caustically that "Politically savvy journalists might have discounted the allegations, or, more likely, have exposed the motivations of those who had tried for so many years to use sex to bring down this president. But Jackson, Cammarata, Goldberg and Tripp had invested wisely in Michael Isikoff."

- - Gary Kamiya, January 19, 2000

http://mediamatters.org/items/200505180001

Isikoff's credulity in dealing with Clinton's accusers wasn't limited to allegations about Clinton's personal life; on at least one occasion, he bought into conservative claims that former White House counsel Vincent Foster's suicide was something more sinister: a January 16, 1996, Newsweek article co-written by Isikoff claimed that "it is Foster's suicide that lends Whitewater its aura of menace."

Isikoff also floated the claim, which later proved false, that the Clinton legal team had been involved in suborning perjury in the creation of a "talking points" document that Lewinsky gave Tripp in advance of her filing an affidavit in the Jones case. As journalist Joe Conason and political columnist Gene Lyons noted in their book, The Hunting of the President (Thomas Dunne Books, 2000), Isikoff later expressed regret at his role in advancing that story, claiming to have simply forgotten that the "talking points" closely mirrored a letter Tripp herself had written to Newsweek long before. [p. 356]

Despite Isikoff's own frequent reliance on questionable sources, he was blistering in his criticism of CBS' 2004 story about President Bush's National Guard record (or lack thereof). Appearing on the September 26, 2004, edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Isikoff said:

"I have to say, if you look at what happened here, this wasn't a mistake. This was a complete meltdown of basic, minimal journalistic standards."

Isikoff went on to suggest to host Howard Kurtz that everyone involved in the story should have been fired.

- - Media Matters, May 17, 2005

As Travis said over at sadlyno.com, "I swear to God, some of these people don’t recognize themselves when they walk past a mirror."

But that's what makes them "useful journalists", as described by Toobin.