From transcript of his National Press Club speech Tue.:
MR. HARBRECHT: Okay. Fair enough. (Applause).
Could you-could you succeed as a journalist, if you worked for an organization which required an accuracy rate of 100 percent, instead of 70 or 80 percent?
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MR. DRUDGE: I don't know what organization that would be. (Scattered laughter.) (Applause.) I once gave a quote-you know, I do a lot of predictions. I have The Truman Show making $300 million. I once gave a quote that "Oh, I guess I'm 80 percent accurate, the body of my work." Newsweek magazine, and then Karen Breslau, who I happened to see in the courtroom-in the courthouse hallways-she's on the pay phone, she says, "Oh, Matt Drudge, my name's Karen Breslau." "Oh, I know you. You're the one who made up a quote on me."
She-she reported Drudge is going to have trouble with his lawsuit, because his-he claims his sources are, quote, "Eighty percent reliable." I've never talked about the reliability of my sources. I said "Karen, you made that up!" She shrugged her shoulders: "Whatever."
This is-this is mainstream press, this is-these are the-the-that bothers me. Recently, after the White House Correspondents' Dinner, I was walking down Connecticut Avenue with the top editor at one of these national magazines. And he was trying to get one of my pals to give him more information on some story that the pal has some information on.
And the pal said, "No, no. You haven't been very good on conservative things," to the editor of the magazine. "I don't think I'm going to help you. You know, you-you just take-you take, you know, stories and print them, and they hurt conservatives."
The editor of this magazine, which I won't name, says, "We just take what they give us."
Now, if this is the standard-if this is the skyscraper up on Sixth Avenue that I want to dream about, I'd rather stay in my dirty Hollywood apartment. I just don't take what people give me. I tend to at least try to frame it with an angle that would consider both sides-provocative stuff.
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