LOS ANGELES — Before dawn on Wednesday, a celebrity news site here published an anonymously sourced article about a kerfuffle involving Scott Disick of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” fame.

It was a classic TMZ scoop. Except that it was not. The article was from The Blast, a new, well-financed entrant on the sharp-elbowed celebrity news scene that is run by Mike Walters, who left TMZ about eight months ago after clashing with that site’s founder, Harvey Levin.

“I’m going to do what I’ve done for the last 15 years, which is break news with credibility and backbone and authority,” said Mr. Walters, who previously ran TMZ’s news desk. “There hasn’t been a new face in this space for a long time. It’s time.”

Consider the gauntlet thrown.

Mr. Levin did not respond to a request for comment.

Schisms are not infrequent in this cutthroat corner of the media landscape, which also includes stalwarts like The New York Post’s Page Six and “Extra.” And it remains to be seen whether The Blast, envisioned by Mr. Walters as a blend of hard-edge news and lighter content like red-carpet photos, can truly compete with TMZ, which has long been a celebrity news-breaking machine. TMZ had 35.4 million unique visitors in July, a 17 percent increase from a year earlier, according to the analytics company comScore. The Blast is starting from scratch.