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Sheer Drudgery | page 1, 2
But as Drudge's fortunes increase (his estimated combined earnings from various deals should exceed $1 million next year) his Columbo routine is wearing thin. Comparing their respective Web sites, Drudge told Kinsley, "You work for the richest man in the world" -- leaving it to moderator Lamb to point out that Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner and Steve Case (AOL carries the Drudge Report) were no slouches in the filthy lucre department. (Salon, for the record, was twitted by both, mostly for its gargantuan, bloated, lazy staff. Kinsley sniffed that Salon's masthead was much larger than Slate's; Drudge called it "just a big, fat operation.") Drudge wants to be identified with the little man -- "I'm Matt Drudge, keeping an eye on all the rascals," he said in signing off on Fox this weekend -- but wants to be treated like a player. Most distressing to journalists (the kind who went to J-school, if not those fancy colleges Drudge derides) is his refusal to follow up on the leads he publishes. You would think that the Blumenthal suit (filed after Drudge wrongfully accused the former journalist of spousal abuse) would have taught him his lesson, but Drudge dismisses it as a White House attack, payback for making the world aware of Monica. As recently as August, Drudge went with an item taken from an internal New York Times news service that claimed Ted Turner was putting his face on a massive billboard in Atlanta. Not exactly stop-the-presses stuff, but easy enough to check. When the not-for-publication tidbit proved not to be true, Drudge shrugged off criticism, saying, "My theory is that if things are moving out on wire services, it's pretty much public information. The future is all wires. Once something is literally typed and sent out over any network it's going to be hard to hold any of it back." The Times took a rather different view of the matter, branding Drudge's move no more than theft. Drudge tried to laugh it off in mock-sinister fashion -- "I have access to all your internals" -- thinking no doubt of Walter Winchell's old radio slogan: "He sees all ... he knows all." But by disseminating bogus information, Drudge is squandering the very credibility he worked for (or lucked into) with his scoops. It is doubtful that Winchell, whom Drudge clearly emulates, would have seen the wisdom in that. He prided himself on being able to pick a winner. It seems Drudge can't resist shooting from the hip. At a Washington Press Corps luncheon last year he was asked what sort of item he wouldn't run with. He replied, "That Phil Hartman may have met his wife through a prostitute doesn't necessarily interest me." It wasn't necessarily true, either, and he had no business repeating it. He just knew it would get some attention. With his Monicagate revelations, Drudge received more attention than perhaps any other individual on the Internet. And when some of his most far-fetched allegations (the semen-stained blue dress for example) proved to be real, he even earned a sort of grudging respect from the very reporters who despised his style. But the shrillness of his message and his association with devoted Clinton foes like Lucianne Goldberg and Richard Mellon Scaife (who is paying much of Drudge's legal bills and admires Clinton the way that crocodile admired Cap'n Hook) just makes him seem like another squeaky wheel in the anti-Clinton machinery. He seems not a journalist at all; just another partisan. Whether Drudge can take it as well as dish it out remains to be seen. A bleary C-Span caller from California (who ultimately volunteered on air that he was stoned) asked him about some common Drudge rumors and the muckraker replied, apparently for the record, "I am not gay ... I haven't done cocaine." But when pressed further he fell back on the standard defense, "I'm not running for office." Nor is he likely to anytime soon. One of Drudge's current obsessions is a piece that Strobe Talbott wrote for Time magazine before he moved to the State Department. In it, he extolled a brave new future of a global economy -- you know, that new-world-order stuff that drives the right crazy. Speaking in Talbott's defense, Kinsley reminded Drudge, "As a journalist your job is to throw caution to the wind" -- i.e. to say what one thinks, without regard to the consequences. Kinsley's fine distinction, of course, was probably lost on Drudge. God only knows what voters would make of some of his utterances. He's forgotten a few of them himself. But he boasts of his ability to hold a grudge and promises to name a few names of his own in his autobiography, due out next year. "I do use my real name," he said by way of farewell on Monday (unlike some of those reporters who make fun of him). But no one accused him of making that up.
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