Far too many media "professionals" are seduced by the celebrity, wealth and influence of their subjects.
Occasionally, journalists actually fuck their subjects, as was the case with Daryn Kagan or Suzy Wetlaufer, the Harvard Business Review editor who got herself fired for crawling into the sack with Neutron Jack(Welch).
More often, the attraction is platonic and completely one-sided. The smitten party doesn't want to boink the object of their obsession. Rather, they want to BE the object of their obsession. Think Thomas Ripley/Dickie Greenleaf. Or George "T-Bone" Costanza/Dan Cortese. Or Chris Matthews/George W. Bush.
Usually, though, the intoxicating agent is more likely to be political power itself than the charms of any one charismatic individual. The journalist is a star fucker not because they want to fuck a star. Rather, they are a star fucker because they want to be a star, and they wind up getting fucked(and not in the good, literal way).
Often, the tendency of so many in the Washington press corps to trade ethics for access is characterized here on Daily Kos as prostitution, a craven willingness to be used in a degrading manner for rewards great(home in the Hamptons, own TV show)or small(continued employment, don't have to move back to Iowa and write copy for the 'Foxy Shopper').
Sometimes, though, this diarist suspects such lickspittle scribes are instead star fuckers. For them, access is not a means to an end, but an end in and of itself. They'll do anything, print anything, to remain an "insider". They merrily swap their self respect and professional credibility for a whiff(not even a taste!)of power. The sad thing is, in their minds, they're getting the better part of the deal.
One could argue that star fucking is less vile than the media prostitution practiced by Armstrong Williams, Bob Woodward, Judith Miller, etc. Surely, though, it is more pathetic. After all, a whore at least gets paid something tangible for their sordid efforts: a crack rock, a wadded up twenty-dollar-bill, a government propaganda payola check, a book contract. All a media star fucker ever gets is the eventual cold realization that, in their quest to be a player, they've allowed themselves to be made a pawn.