Matt Drudge, E-Journalist
By James K. Glassman
Tuesday, June 9, 1998; Page A15
Last Friday at 7:58 p.m., Matt Drudge, the notorious Internet journalist
who told the world about the liaison between Monica Lewinsky and
President Clinton, sent an e-mail to hundreds of thousands of people on his
electronic mailing list.
"The Drudge Report," it read, "is monitoring information on what appears
to be an 8.4 magnitude seismic event that occurred in the
BALTICS-BELARUS region in NW RUSSIA." Was the story true? An
8.4 quake would be greater by far than Loma Prieta in 1989, Kobe in
1995 or even San Francisco in 1906.
Yesterday, Drudge's website was reporting that "one military source has
become convinced that the reading was a technical error." We called
Robert North at the International Data Center, Drudge's source, who said
that his "automatic processing isn't perfect. . . . That earthquake never
happened."
This rumbling is what the new E-Journalism is all about. Drudge, who may
be the most powerful reporter in America and is certainly the most heroic,
hears something, sees something, monitors something. Drawing on his own
instincts to assess the item's veracity, he tells his readers, and they can
check it out themselves (Drudge provided a handy link to the IDC's
website) -- or swallow it whole.
In other words, E-Journalism demands judgment not just from writers but
from readers. Better yet, it reminds us that all journalism demands such
judgment. We may feel better about a story because it has a brand name
like AP or CBS attached, but skepticism is always warranted.
When I saw Sunday that corporate twins Time and CNN were reporting
that the United States "used lethal nerve gas during a mission to kill
American defectors in Laos during the Vietnam War," I wondered: How
good were the sources? Where was the chemical evidence? Was reporter
Peter Arnett himself credible? Were CNN and Time stretching this tale to
create a blockbuster premiere for their new TV show?
Then again, readers of this column can question my own skepticism.
Wasn't Glassman the host of a Sunday chat show that CNN killed last
January? Does he harbor a grudge?
Such questions are legitimate and necessary -- and I credit Drudge with
reminding us they must be asked. The conventional editing process is no
guarantor of truth, as Drudge pointed out in his virtuoso performance
Tuesday before a snarling audience at the National Press Club.
He noted that NBC's legions didn't prevent Tom Brokaw from smearing
Richard Jewell, that the Wall Street Journal recently suffered a huge libel
judgment and that fictionist Stephen Glass deceived, among many others,
John F. Kennedy Jr. and the editors of the New Republic.
By contrast, Drudge said, a journalist operating alone takes personal
responsibility for his stories in a way that large news organizations do not.
"No 'Periscope' here," he said. "No 'Washington Whispers' here. I put my
name on it. I'll answer for anything I write."
Also, with Internet reporters such as Drudge around, stories are less likely
to be hoarded by journalism's elite, who use the "public's right to know" as
a constant defense but who really mean "our right to tell the public when
we feel like it." Newsweek put the Lewinsky story on ice -- an unsound
judgment. Drudge let the world know.
Drudge had no apologies for non-membership in journalism's smug little
guild. "If I am here to defend what I am writing," he said, "why isn't that
enough?" It is. Let Drudge write his version of truth, and let readers judge
for themselves. If he libels someone (as Sidney Blumenthal, the smirkish
Clinton aide, alleges), then he'll be sued, as he should be. If he gets the
story wrong too many times, no one will listen to him. The marketplace for
news is like any other.
But this kind of marketplace, spread by the Internet, is a threat to the
people with the power today, especially in politics and journalism. Drudge
quoted Hillary Clinton, who said earlier this year, "We're all going to have
to rethink how we deal with the Internet. As exciting as these new
developments are, there are a number of serious issues without any kind of
editing function or gatekeeping function."
She talked about a kind of balance, warning that "any time an individual
leaps so far ahead of that balance and throws the system, whatever it might
be -- political, economic, technological -- out of balance, you've got a
problem."
Really? Maybe you've got a problem, "you" being the folks in charge
before someone leaps "far ahead." The rest of us, gatekeeper-less, have
more choices, more freedom, a more exciting future.
Drudge wondered if Mrs. Clinton would have said the same thing about
such balance-upsetters as Edison and Ford. "If technology has finally
caught up with individual liberty," said Drudge, "why would anyone who
loves freedom want to rethink that?"
Exactly. If there is a problem with Drudge, it is that there is only one of
him. Let a thousand Drudges bloom, and let readers make up their own
minds.
As for that earthquake. Okay, so it didn't happen in Belarus, but it's
happening in America today -- to the dismay of the National Press Club
and Hillary Clinton -- and the reading is at least 8.4.
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