As anyone who's watched MTV’s “Newlyweds” knows, the trick with Jessica Simpson is not in getting her to talk. It's getting her to shut up.
   And so when the new magazine OK! launched yesterday in New York with Simpson as the magazine’s cover girl, one had to wonder what the joke was. Why would OK! pay Simpson a rumored $200,000 for an exclusive when she happily yaks with other magazines like Us Weekly for free?

   If that’s how publisher Richmond Desmond, AKA Dirty Des in the UK, expects to drive his new magazine to the top of the U.S.'s celeb heap, he'd better set aside another $100 million atop the $100 million he says he's prepared to spend over six years.
   Based on the first issue of OK!, it could take him six years and that first $100 million to just figure out who really matters in U.S. celeb-land.
   Having Simpson on the cover is hardly the only flaw in the new OK! 
  Indeed, the whole magazine seems out of the loop, a compilation of last month's gossip and last year's lamest fashion ideas.
   It gushes, for instance, over the Jessica-Nick marriage, quoting her as saying, "If I got pregnant, I'd be ecstatic!" But savvier celeb followers, notably the New York Post, have been reporting that the two are in fact ex-lovebirds and recently signed divorce papers.

   OK! doesn’t mention that latest report, insisting the two are more in love than ever. Please; it's one thing to pay celebs to talk, even street-corner yakkers like Jessica Simpson. But that doesn't mean you print all their nonsense. (One problem with checkbook journalism, less often discussed, is that when you pay people to talk, you can’t ask any tough questions.)
   There are other big problems with OK!.
   The new magazine lacks Us Weekly’s wit and Star’s cheek.
   Also, didn’t Us have those same pictures of a bikini-clad Nicole Richie romping at the beach last week?
   And while OK! teases about Mischa Barton’s new companion, Us and In Touch already paired her off with a new man last week.

   The feature on celebrity weddings looks to be a rehash of photos that have run in other magazines, many of them months ago. 
   A feature on Tara Reid is no less stale. She’s been a joke in the celebrity world for years, yet OK! offers a serious writeup on her oft-repeated and never-achieved vow to stop partying. (If Reid stopped partying, she would promptly disappear.)
   Further, despite OK!’s claim that it really talks to the stars it covers, there are no direct quotes from such prominently featured celebrities as Paris Hilton, “Desperate Housewives’” Eva Langoria or Denzel Washington. Did the magazine try to talk to them, or was it a matter of using their pictures in such a way as to make it looks as if it did?
   In the end, the one thing OK! may having going for it is sheer size. The magazine is larger than rivals People, Star and Us, and should stand out better on the newsstand. And the paper is nicer, even if the photos and stories on it are stale.

    OK! could easily improve, so perhaps it's too early to kiss it off. 
   Next week, Michael Jackson is rumored to be appearing on the cover, and that could give the new title a jolt at the newsstands. But one must wonder: If OK! editors threw Simpson softball questions, how hard will they press Jackson for the rumored $2 million they will pay the faded pop star? One cannot be encouraged.