By RegoPark
Contributing Blogger

Last weekend I curled up with a specially ordered August 1998 back issue of Playboy featuring — what else? — an interview with Matt Drudge. Raw interviews are the best form of journalism, in my opinion; they leave as little as possible to the middleman and quotes can be understood in their correct context. Unfiltered news in the spirit of the Drudge Report… In this case, readers could see that Matt was getting quite a bit of an ambush from the Playboy editor, who was as aggressive, if not more so, than the journalists who reluctantly received Drudge at his Washington Press Club speech around that time. Playboy Dude was so busy with the cross-exam that he never even got around to asking Matt’s bust measurements, hobbies, or turn-ons/turn-offs. Nevertheless, the Drudge spread outshone that of Downtown Julie Brown and The Women of Iceland…and his exposed parts didn’t even get airbrushed.

Speaking of cheesy photographs…this is the origin of the Sam Spade-esque photo gracing the cover of Drudge Manifesto. As someone who works in PR, one of my major frustrations with Drudge is that he constantly shoots himself in the foot with really stupid posturing like this. Check out the Playboy article and you’ll see it’s one of three printed shots from the same photo shoot. One shot looks pretty normal, another, where Matt’s laughing candidly, makes him look incredibly cute. See, if you cull all the candid images out there, he’s an attractive young man…even now. But when he “strikes a pose” like this or this or this…or this…even this, he has the mien of a sleazy, bottom-feeding old fart. I can’t even look at those “hand on chin” shots without cringing.

Can’t someone out there just give this guy a big hug before a photo shoot?

Even if they don’t really mean it?

Matt, if it will prevent further photographic debacles like this, I’ll fly down to Miami and fix you a batch of homemade latkes and pecan kugel right before you let someone shoot your mug again. I’ll won’t even use bottled applesauce — for the sake of the future of unfiltered journalism, I’ll bake the apples in their own skin. Say the word and I’ll even throw in a bowl of soup — all ingredients made from scratch, of course. I’ll even give you a few gentle pats on the back while your food’s digesting and scold you a little while the camera and backdrop is being set up. Deal?

While Matt’s thinking my proposal over, Monday’s blog will go into a little further detail about tidbits in the Playboy “reveal” that challenge the conventional perception of Drudge as a right-wing Walter Winchell wannabe.

RegoPark is a pseudonym for a writer with a background in marketing communications. She is currently working on a novel about PR and the alternative media.