Everyone who care about First Amendment Rights and internet freedom needs to follow this one closely.
Drudge Libel Suit Puts Mavens
Of Free Speech in Awkward Spot
By EDWARD FELSENTHAL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Ready for a brawl involving rumors about a White House aide, cries of professional misconduct and allegations of a right-wing conspiracy?
Then walk up three flights from where the grand jury here is meeting in the Clinton sex scandal and listen to the arguments in Blumenthal vs. Drudge, a high-stakes libel case that gets under way Wednesday against controversial cyber-reporter Matt Drudge.
The $30 million defamation suit, filed in August by presidential adviser Sidney Blumenthal, provides the latest evidence of the twisted loyalties and personal animus that dominate Washington's scandal-obsessed culture. Mr. Drudge has been all but abandoned by media types who typically support reporters fighting political figures, even though his case could help define what constitutes libel on the Internet. Instead, Mr. Drudge's main backing has come from conservatives with disdain for the Clinton administration and a fondness for the bad news about it that regularly appears in his gossipy on-line column, the Drudge Report.
Consider David Horowitz, the founder of a conservative social-policy institute in Los Angeles who has become Mr. Drudge's biggest champion. Mr. Horowitz was drawn in partly by lingering resentment about his own run-in with Mr. Blumenthal, a former journalist known for his liberalism. A decade ago, Mr. Blumenthal wrote an article that said Mr. Horowitz had "left his wife and three children" when he abandoned liberalism. Mr. Horowitz says his divorce and his political change-of-heart were years apart, and, besides, he has four children.
Now, Mr. Blumenthal was on the attack over a story that also involved allegations of family miscreance: a rumor circulated in the Drudge Report that he had a history of "spousal abuse." Almost immediately, Mr. Horowitz called Mr. Drudge, found him lawyers and set up a legal-defense fund. Mr. Blumenthal stridently denies any such abuse, and Mr. Drudge has retracted his story, although his lawyer insists he was "reporting accurately on a rumor."
"I know what it is like to be on the receiving end ... from Sidney Blumenthal," says Mr. Horowitz. "I was happy to do this for Drudge."
Mr. Horowitz's involvement reflects the degree to which the legal stakes in the case have been obscured. That's apparent both from the lineup of supporters on either side and from rhetoric of the parties themselves, which shifts awkwardly between personal rancor and legal doctrine. In one particularly telling TV appearance, for instance, Mr. Blumenthal's lawyer accidentally called his adversary "Grudge."
Although the case is still new -- a preliminary hearing is set for Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court, it poses some critical questions: How does one decide what amounts to "reckless" speech on a freewheeling, unbridled medium like the Web? How much reporting and fact-checking should diligent Internet publishers do, given their instant access to millions of readers? Is a retraction meaningful in cyberspace when it is so easy to copy material and pass it along to others? Mr. Blumenthal has also sued America Online Inc. because it posted the Drudge Report, raising the issue of whether on-line services need to screen what their contributors and customers say.
So why hasn't Mr. Drudge, who writes mostly about Washington and Hollywood, won more media support? The dithering stems in part from discomfort with Mr. Drudge himself, who has come to symbolize a new kind of journalism that values sensationalism and speed over accuracy. The fast-and-loose nature of some of his reports has spawned vicious attacks on his ethics.
"This is a conundrum for mainstream journalism," says Paul McMasters, a former reporter who is now the First Amendment ombudsman at the Freedom Forum, a foundation devoted to free speech. It's "a battle that they'd just as soon not be fighting."
That has left right-wing press critics such as Mr. Horowitz to support First Amendment protections that would aid and comfort mainstream journalists as they move onto the Web. The suit has also put liberals (Blumenthal included) and traditionally absolutist First Amendment advocates in an awkward position: Either lend support to a style of journalism they detest or risk putting their own freedoms at risk in the future.
Among the media and First Amendment luminaries who have attacked or distanced themselves from Mr. Drudge: Marvin Kalb, head of the press and politics program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government; Robert O'Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression; Joan Konner, publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review; and Floyd Abrams, dean of the First Amendment bar and lawyer for many news organizations. Mr. Drudge "isn't a real journalist, if that term has any meaning at all," says Mr. Abrams.
Even some people at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a vocal proponent of on-line speech rights, were reluctant to come out strongly behind Mr. Drudge. Michael Godwin, a lawyer for the foundation, says he had to convince co-workers the case was worth backing. "A lot of them took the very, in my view, reactive position that Drudge is just getting what he deserves," Mr. Godwin says.
Mr. Drudge likens himself to the pamphleteers of colonial America, and he attributes his treatment to resentment, particularly after he helped break the story of Monica Lewinsky's alleged sexual relationship with President Clinton. "This case marks the first time a sitting White House presidential adviser has sued a reporter," Mr. Drudge wrote in a Feb. 23 report. "Journalists certainly should be outraged."
Into the gap has stepped a trio of California activists to back Mr. Drudge. When the dispute arose, Mr. Horowitz -- whose Center for the Study of Popular Culture is funded in part by Richard Scaife, a fiercely anti-Clinton heir to the Mellon fortune -- had just published an autobiography that assailed Mr. Blumenthal for making "malicious personal attacks" as a journalist. He heard about the Drudge situation from Barbara Ledeen, a Washington acquaintance who says she is still "foaming at the mouth" because of stories Mr. Blumenthal wrote about her husband, a former Reagan administration official, and his colleagues. Mr. Horowitz then phoned the young reporter and offered help.
Mr. Horowitz found Mr. Drudge two lawyers: Manuel Klausner, a libertarian who had been a prominent supporter of California's anti-affirmative-action initiative, and Patrick Manshardt, an attorney at Mr. Horowitz's foundation who had been active in fighting restrictive university speech codes. A recent fund-raising pitch from Mr. Horowitz assails "the liberal press" for covering up Clinton scandals and promises "to establish a battle station for the war" against Mr. Blumenthal and the White House.
"Here you have an Internet David fighting a White House Goliath," says Mr. Horowitz. William McDaniel, a lawyer for Mr. Blumenthal, dismisses such talk, describing Mr. Horowitz as a "right-wing nut who used to be a left-wing nut."
Mr. Blumenthal is getting plenty of support from the White House. His lawyer was referred to him by Clinton consultant James Carville. A White House spokesman even complained to USA Today last fall about an op-ed piece defending Mr. Drudge.
The Battle Begins
The suit was filed last summer, just two weeks after Mr. Drudge unleashed a report, attributed to "GOP operatives," that Mr. Blumenthal, now involved in press relations at the White House, "has a spousal-abuse past." The report cited an "influential Republican" who referred to "court records of Blumenthal's violence," plus an anonymous White House source who dismissed the allegation as fiction that has circulated for years.
The next day, Mr. Blumenthal's lawyer fired off a fax denouncing the report as "contemptible drivel" and demanding that Mr. Drudge identify his sources. Mr. Drudge quickly retracted the story, saying he had been used by people with political motives.
"Maybe I made some mistakes," says Mr. Drudge, who quit a gift-shop job at a TV studio to write Internet dispatches, "but ... the First Amendment protects mistakes." Mr. Drudge, 31 years old, now works from his small Los Angeles apartment and says he had little income other than a $3,000 monthly fee from AOL until the Fox TV News Channel came along with a recent offer to host a talk-show.
Both sides now try to present themselves as protectors of the First Amendment. But they also show how easily the porous principles of free speech can be adapted to serve goals of the moment. Indeed, in recent weeks the case has become a kind of bizarre study of how to wield the First Amendment offensively and defensively at the same time.
For example, Mr. Blumenthal attacked Kenneth Starr for subpoenaing him in a search for the origin of negative stories about the independent counsel's staff. Mr. Blumenthal's lawyers, the same ones representing him in the Drudge case, denounced it as an assault on the First Amendment, saying it was improper to probe into his relationships with reporters.
'Oh, Sidney'
The irony wasn't lost on Mr. Drudge, still bristling from Mr. Blumenthal's demand that he divulge sources for his "spousal abuse" report. Under the title "Blumenthal Cries Ring Hollow: Demand for source protection draws laughter," he immediately countered in a fresh Drudge Report: "Is this the same protector of journalist standards who demanded to know Drudge Report sources involved in a story written in this space last summer -- or he would sue it into the ground for a cool $30 million? ... Oh, Sidney."
But the Drudge team has engaged in some First Amendment double talk of its own. Even as Mr. Drudge railed about Mr. Blumenthal's lawsuit, it turns out, his lawyer was raising the possibility of libel action against the Los Angeles Times. Angry about a columnist's assertion that Mr. Drudge wouldn't "recognize an ethical standard if he tripped on one," Mr. Klausner asked in a Feb. 10 letter to the paper for "the information" the writer drew upon in criticizing his client. The paper refused, responding that Mr. Drudge "opens himself up to critique" by posting his report on the Internet and making television appearances.
Supporters of Mr. Drudge and those of Mr. Blumenthal insist they are consistent. Mr. Klausner says he never asked for the Times's sources, only the steps it took to "substantiate" the story. And Mr. Horowitz says he has long fought for free speech and would have helped Mr. Drudge even if he hadn't had a prior row with Mr. Blumenthal. As for Mr. Blumenthal's invocation of the First Amendment against Mr. Starr, his lawyer says there's a difference between suing someone for defamation and "dragooning somebody into a grand jury."
Drudge critics acknowledge that his credibility got a boost from his early report on an alleged relationship between President Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky. Lucianne Goldberg, the book agent who encouraged Linda Tripp to record conversations about the allegations with the former intern, suggested on TV that she might leak the tapes to Mr. Drudge "a line at a time." And NBC's "Meet the Press" had Mr. Drudge himself as a guest, along with a U.S. senator and two Catholic archbishops.
The NBC appearance infuriated the Blumenthal team, which dispatched a nasty letter threatening to depose the show's host, Tim Russert. "The Blumenthals are interested in learning whether you intend to testify on behalf of Mr. Drudge at the upcoming trial," the letter said, adding that Mr. Russert had introduced his guest "as though you believed him to be a reputable journalist." But the appearance only enhanced Mr. Drudge's stature, helping prompt Fox to make its talk-show offer.
All of which feeds hopes of Mr. Drudge's supporters that he will eventually win over the press. "Whether we like it or not, he's one of us," says Mr. McMasters, the former reporter now at the Freedom Forum. "While there's a visceral impulse to think that people of Drudge's ilk need to be punished ... that is a dangerous road to head down."
But others predict the mainstream media will never really embrace Mr. Drudge, even at the risk of eroding their own legal defenses. "There is such a level of built-in irresponsibility in everything he says and does," says Mr. Abrams, the First Amendment lawyer. "If one were rewriting libel law today, one would try to write it to assure that the false statements of Matt Drudge were treated as libel." |
