- - - - - - - - - -

T A B L E__T A L K

Will Netscape's decision to make its source code public improve its chances of beating IE once and for all? Join the discussion in Table Talk's Digital Culture area

- - - - - - - - - -

R E C E N T L Y

Let's Get This Straight
By Scott Rosenberg
The unholy union of technobabble and marketspeak
(01/30/98)

Is Bill Gates a closet liberal?
By Andrew Leonard
The money trail of his philanthropy suggests just that
(01/29/98)

Can technology be beautiful?
By Scott Rosenberg
David Gelernter's "Machine Beauty"
(01/28/98)

Flicks from the underground
By David Hudson
Berlin transforms subway tunnels into movie screens
(01/27/98)

21st Challange
By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau
Haiku error messages.
Plus: Results of Challenge No. 3.
(01/26/98)

Let's Get This Straight
By Scott Rosenberg
Microsoft spins, Netscape liberates, Wired ... synergizes?
(01/23/98)

BROWSE THE ARCHIVES FOR Let's Get This Straight

BY MIKE GODWIN | As the media furor about the president's alleged sexual adventures rages, the scandal has created a fascinating sideshow: the rehabilitation of Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge. In a matter of days, Drudge went from scorned purveyor of unsubstantiated rumor to honored talk-show authority.

But the shift in the mainstream press's attitude toward Drudge -- from snooty disdain to cautious respect -- is unlikely to last, given that few mainstream journalists are willing to acknowledge that the nature of Drudge's work is scarcely different from that of their own. And if "Tailgate" fizzles as a scandal, you can bet that the press, eager to find someone else to blame for the media frenzy, will seize upon Drudge as a convenient scapegoat.

A number of media pundits -- notably Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's media critic -- were all too ready last fall to proclaim Drudge's demise as a media force after White House aide Sidney Blumenthal filed a $30 million lawsuit against Drudge and America Online, which carries his trademark mix of political and Hollywood dish. (Drudge reported correctly that Blumenthal was rumored in right-wing circles to have a history of spousal abuse, but erred in failing to determine that there was no evidence to support that charge.)

But now that Drudge has played a key role in igniting the media firestorm surrounding President Clinton and his supposed affair with a White House intern, the 30-year-old columnist is once again being treated as a serious player by leading media institutions.

The shift in Drudge's treatment by broadcasters has been extraordinary. Shortly before the Monica Lewinsky story broke, the Blumenthal-Drudge case was the subject of an installment of Ted Koppel's "Nightline." Koppel's primary guest was Kurtz, whose eagerness to slam Drudge led to his making claims about the reliability and probity of the traditional press that are demonstrably untrue. Kurtz argued that a newspaper's editorial hierarchy is what prevents a paper from publishing defamatory material -- a revelation that must be rather startling to Richard Jewell, whom the traditional press wrongly presumed to be behind the bombing at the '96 Olympic games in Atlanta. And Kurtz asserted that a mistake like Drudge's would get him fired from any reputable newspaper -- an assertion that even Koppel felt compelled to dispute.

Following the first week of the Lewinsky story, however, it was hard to watch any TV account of the scandal without hearing a reference to Drudge's having "broken the story." And, in fact, Drudge did break some parts of the story, including the fact that Newsweek opted at the last minute to delay publication of its own coverage. (Spurred by Drudge's report and the resultant frenzy, Newsweek used its America Online site to get its version into circulation, but felt constrained in the following week's magazine edition to emphasize that its reporter, Michael Isikoff, had uncovered parts of the story that Drudge didn't know about.) On Jan. 25, a week after publishing his major Lewinsky piece, Drudge appeared both on CNN's "Reliable Sources" (whose very name imposes the CNN imprimatur on any guest) and on NBC's venerable "Meet the Press." And in the next few days he appeared on shows ranging from "Talkback Live" to "Leeza."

But this shouldn't be taken as proof that the journalistic establishment has embraced Matt Drudge; what it really illustrates is the profound ambivalence with which that establishment regards him. You can see this ambivalence in Michael Kinsley's essay "In Defense of Drudge," which was a part of Time's package dealing with the Lewinsky affair, and in John Schwartz's essay in the Jan. 26 Washington Post. Kinsley feels compelled to distinguish between what Drudge does and what the really good journalists -- like Kinsley -- do, but then proceeds to defend Drudge as meeting a sort of allowable substandard. Schwartz is more straightforward: He begins by admitting his "powerful feeling" that if he ever met Drudge he wouldn't like the guy.

N E X T_P A G E | Why Drudge will win