drudge blog

By RegoPark
Contributing Writer

I know this essay is long. I know there are more important things to think about besides Matt Drudge’s sexual orientation. And yet, this isn’t entirely about Matt Drudge. It’s about the nature of gossip, about manipulation, about spin, and about incorrect premises. It’s about what we can really know about the news we’re spoon-fed and the rumors we seek on our own.

Maybe this piece’s length – and its triviality – is part of the point. Truth is complicated. Sound bites are not. News shorts are not. Gossip is certainly not. Brevity is the soul of wit…and brevity AND wit are the soul of tabloid journalism.

Most people will take a few minutes a day to read snippets of gossip. They’re not going to pore through pages of information debunking a rumor. No, most of you will not read this essay in its entirety, but for whatever it’s worth, it’s here.

(Would it help to know that I work in public relations and had already accumulated most of this Drudge research for another project?)

Why care?

I don’t have the hours in a day to tackle “important” issues. Frankly, this is just one of a handful of subjects that I happen feel qualified to question. Just in the course of researching something else, I just happened to accrue a lot of info on Matt Drudge and happened to get a more comprehensive view of his M.O., ideas, personality, and the practical logistics in running the Drudge Report…more so than perhaps anyone he doesn’t know. What can I say? One thing led to another and eventually it turned into an epistemological dilemma.

If Matt Drudge is gay, he’s a shameless liar and can’t be trusted. (But I still don’t think he’s a hypocrite, as I’ll discuss momentarily.)

If he is not gay, then the media is even more profoundly screwed up than you and I might have thought. And I’m in PR.

The first thing I read in a news forum or interview is that “I don’t really care if Drudge is gay…” But it doesn’t quite stop them from indulging in the worst-kept of the worst-kept secrets of the “true” state of affairs. In any case, the rumor has morphed into another cheap brand of ammunition that detracts from real issues involving Matt Drudge and Internet journalism. Besides, it’s pretty damned annoying. Anyway, the gay cowboy flick Brokeback Mountain will open the floodgates on this “fact” again (as it has this week on Wonkette — keep your orbs peeled for the next “Matt Drudge Ignores Me” on Gawker…)

In researching this piece, I carefully studied…

Jeannette Walls’ Dish in both its hardback and paperback editions to check for new edits and her new autobiography, The Glass Castle. I scrutinized every inch of David Brock’s Blinded By the Right and the book he now does not stand by, The Real Anita Hill. I also noted references to Brock in Hill’s own interviews. I scoured the Internet for all accounts of the post-rumor aftermath and both authors’ comments to the press, along with the press coverage of Alec Baldwin. Most valuable of all, I believe, are unabridged transcripts from Matt’s interviews and televised appearances.

Am I biased? You decide…

There is prejudice rooted in morality and morality rooted in prejudice. On one hand, compassion and dignity for the individual often go out the window when it comes to dealing with gays. On the other hand, religious communities are sometimes unfairly characterized as bigoted for having theological issues with homosexual acts. I’ll confess to having a real problem with the ex-gay movement…and with outing. Also, I believe that most people who claim to be gay usually are not going through some phase (although some actually are) and that it’s probably true that 10% of the population are homosexual and even more have bisexual tendencies.

But based on my accrued knowledge of Matt Drudge, and my own gaydar, I have to say: the “outers” are toilet-papering the wrong tree. Matt ain’t on the team.

The sources of the “gay rumors”

Apart from various rumors flying around, there are three primary sources for the Drudge gay stories which I’ll address one by one:

1. Jeannette Walls in her book, Dish: How Gossip Became the News and the News Became Just Another Show.

2. David Brock in Blinded by the Right (which I’ll explore in Part 2)

3. Alec Baldwin in an interview with Howard Stern

Sounds pretty damning, doesn’t it? Three people who are willing to attach their names to the claim that Matt Drudge is, according to one of the first entries that pops up when you Google him, “A gay who backs the gay bashers.”

The major premise for the “gay hypocrisy” is unfounded. Jeannette Walls says she finds it “hypocritical that a man who has become a spokesman of the far right has led a lifestyle at odds with the ultra-conservative values he supposedly embraces.”

Matt Drudge has said and demonstrated that he is not a right-wing Republican. He has voted for Jerry Brown and Ralph Nader and quipped in Playboy, “I wish Jimmy Carter were still President.” Most recently:

In The Times (UK), 2005:

“So are you a gay right-wing Republican?” I ask.

“No, I’m not gay. I was nearly married a few years ago. And no, I’m not a right-wing Republican,” he replies without batting an eye. “I’m a conservative and want to pay less taxes. And I did vote Republican at the last election. But I’m more of a populist.”

In Radar, 2003:

I was actually very on the fence on the war. It put me in a difficult position. If you’ve noticed, I thought I did a pretty clever job of at least sharing with readers what the U.K. Mirror, the Independent, all these antiwar outlets were doing. Probably it was perceived as just mischief-making, but it reflected my own lack of clarity about the war issue. I don’t have to be clear, though. I’m not a politician.

If you scrutinize Drudge’s press and radio show, you will see that he is a libertarian who champions privacy and First Amendment issues. He wouldn’t call Pat Robertson a jerk on-air or tell a reporter he admired Michael Moore if he were really committed to toeing the GOP line. Of all the items I have accumulated in my Drudge archives, I have yet to find evidence that he condemns homosexuality or “supports” gay-bashing.

And why would a far-right GOP pretend to be libertarian or populist? He’d have more allies being honest.

But since we’re on the subject, the gay community is as diverse as the general population it comes out of. Liking your own gender doesn’t genetically predispose you to vote Democratic. It doesn’t make you a single-issue voter. It doesn’t affect your attitudes on economic or foreign policy.

And being theologically opposed to homosexuality – or not supporting same-sex marriage – does not necessarily make one a bigot or “gay basher”. While I don’t agree with the Christian Right’s politics or theology, I need more proof that a specific individual spews inflammatory rhetoric before I whip out the “bigot” card on him or her.

In any case, Matt Drudge neither fits into this “traditional values” category nor pretends to. He is, after all, the one who brought us that cigar story. A guy who volunteers to the press that he meditates and talks about “third-eye stuff” and reads Theosophists like Krishnamurti isn’t exactly Mr. Middle America G.O.P. That might turn off the ladies at the Eagle Forum or the dittoheads at the Conservative Political Action Committee. Oh, yeah, and that club music stuff… But the fact that he can find a common ground with farther-right-leaning conservatives at speaking gigs doesn’t mean he sympathizes with “gay bashing” – whatever we decide that really means.

The premise for the “privacy hypocrisy” is faulty. Walls says she finds it “ironic that a man whose entire career has been based on revealing the sexual behavior of others has a sexual history of his own that he now seems at pains to hide.”

Drudge’s interview with Radar, 2003:

…I think pulling out his cigar in the White House as Arafat waited outside wipes out any argument Clinton might have had…In any case I no longer do the Clinton beat. Or cover any politicians who are out of office. So I would say what he was doing on the clock in the White House very much was a concern to everybody involved, not to mention national security.

…I think my private life would make my public persona a lot less interesting. Once you take the mask off Batman he seems a bit diminished. Not that I’m equating myself to that character. Or Spider-Man. Or the Incredible Hulk. But if you’re in the public eye to the degree that I am, you want to preserve a bit of mystery.

The temptation to “out” closeted gays is strong. We know that if we dig deep enough, in the right place, we’ll strike gold. And in the past several years, Drudge has been a convenient scapegoat for all the justifiable anger against genuine religious and political hypocrisy. But guess what? This witch hunt isn’t going to fix the gay community’s problems. In the zeal to uncover Republican hypocrisy, some of its members unwittingly perpetuate vile stereotypes of themselves.

Rumors beget rumors – and color our perceptions of what’s already been heard. Anyone from anywhere can report anything on the Internet. And not get identified or sued.

Gossip, and sensational “legitimate” news stay in the news only as long as they are interesting and as long as the reporter-source relationship isn’t strained. The news that Blumenthal dropped his libel suit against Drudge wasn’t nearly as newsworthy as its filing. And the last mention of a running battle between Walls and Drudge in the gossip columns is as follows:

Asked to comment on the recent Page Six item detailing the scuffle, (Matt Drudge) responds: “Page Six rocks! So do you…” Well, I certainly wouldn’t mid if that was the last word on the matter.

Lawsuits are usually more trouble than they are worth. Ironically, Jeannette Walls discusses this in Dish, which chronicles the history of gossip up to Drudge’s rise to fame. Filing libel or slander claims further publicize a rumor. The burden is on the plaintiff to prove that a claim was false and planted maliciously. More on this later.

Many, if not most, untrue rumors are difficult or impossible to disprove. If they weren’t, it would be hard for gossip columnists to make their daily deadlines or for tabloids to meet the bottom line.

A rumor – or legitimate news item – is all in its packaging. Many people who read the widely circulated 1998 e-mail that began “I’m sure many of you watched the recent taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show where her guest was Tommy Hilfiger” never thought to question whether Hilfiger even appeared on Oprah, let alone be stupid enough to make racist on-air comments to her face.

Raw Story columnist Larry Womack once waxed eloquent over Drudge’s request that the Miami New Times not take full body photos of him. “That is either one of the gayest things I’ve ever heard or one of the craziest.” A reader might want to check out the article’s context:

It’s nothing personal, (Drudge) explains from behind a pair of dark sunglasses, posing inside his 27th-floor apartment as a breathtaking view of the Atlantic unfolds through the floor-to-ceiling windows around him. “I just feel really left alone in Miami,” he says, which is the way he’d like to keep it. So no unmasked eyes, no identifying full-body photos, and definitely no mentioning his exact street address.

This isn’t the Village Voice Matt’s talking to. This the Miami equivalent thereof — his local newspaper. Of course he doesn’t want a full-body shot.

Challenging a man’s heterosexuality is an age-old, effortless, surefire cheap shot. Few straight men can categorically and confidently say that being called gay does not gravely discomfit them. The burden of proof is instantly on the accused to prove his “manhood”. It doesn’t matter whether the accuser is conservative or liberal. The more the accused challenges the accusation, the more suspect he is. Then again, silence is deafening. Like with the Salem witch trials, the only way to prove you’re not what the mob thinks you are is to let them metaphorically tie your hands and feet together to see if you float on water.

Jeannette Walls, David Brock, and Alec Baldwin are politically liberal, and the latter two are politically active. To some degree, all perceive Drudge as a public representative of the “Right” and as more extremist than he really is. I’ll go into greater detail on each of them elsewhere.

Matt Drudge can’t possibly have the time and energy to address rumors and carry on with his work. As I’ve discussed in previous essays, the guy works roughly 14 hours a day on the Drudge Report and does a weekly radio show. Even when traveling, he spends a huge chunk of time in his hotel room.

Matt Drudge isn’t Mr. Congeniality with everyone, and he’s probably alienated many people who aren’t even political enemies. The gay rumor is a great way to stick it to him.

“I make friends easily,” he wrote (or at least approved his co-author’s copy) in Drudge Manifesto. “Keeping them is…difficult.”

“Evidence” of Drudge’s “obvious” homosexuality is suspect. Okay, guys. If we’re going to go there, and some challenge me with this…

If you watch prolonged video footage of Matt, you see that he cannot keep his hands still. He told the Washington Post that he had an attention span problem. “I was a stutterer. I had a twitch inside all the time – a lot of raw energy.” A social reporter described Drudge’s “usual full-body ticking.” The cocking of his eyebrow is apparently involuntary – on his April 2005 appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, the brow was jerking even when his eye was closed. Whatever the cause, which is no business of ours, his wrist is no more limp than any other body part that moves around on-camera. Get over it.

His regional accent – a Mid-Atlantic strain I recognize from the Pennsylvania-Maryland area – accentuates the nasal quality of his voice.

Posting a joke caption about Kerry and Edwards “caressing” each other doesn’t make you gay. Look, I voted for them and I felt Matt’s “contextual coverage” illustrated a salient point. It’s at least interesting to note the affectionate body language between two erstwhile opponents who’d been dissing each other months before. Also, the lovey-doveytude was fairly unprecedented in American politics.

Being an electronica lover or dance club patron doesn’t make you gay. Being friends with outgoing “fag hags” doesn’t make you gay – but it helps if you’re shy around women, as friend reported in the Washington Post.

Not jumping at a voice mail from a female Penthouse reporter doesn’t make you gay. “I always found that even if men decide they don’t want to be in Penthouse, they call back very quickly,” Cathy Seipp recounts in her blog. “I don’t know quite what you say about a man who won’t even talk to a woman calling from Penthouse, except that maybe he’s not exactly a flagrant heterosexual.” Did writing for Penthouse make Seipp a lesbian? Don’t tell me National Review Cathy has caught that “gay conservative hypocrite” bug that Jeannette Walls and David Brock have prudently warned the public about. (Now, journalists do have a symbiotic relationship with PR pros and newsworthy individuals like Matt Drudge. But nobody owes a reporter an interview. Nobody owes a reporter anything. Let’s hold off on the cheap shots, darlings. If Drudge really does have “the manners of a squid” and intentionally two-times competing porno pubs, he has enough rope with which to hang himself careerwise.)

And think critically about the clothes, OK? The fedora is worn only in public and is part of his schtick – reminiscent of the Walter Winchell era. He wore a faded sports shirt to a Miami New Times photo shoot, a wrinkled one to meet with a Playboy reporter, a tux-and-fedora combo every year to the White House Correspondents Dinner, and an unbuttoned, oversized jacket to a 1998 National Press Club speech (which he was photographed in again at a radio panel speech in 1994). This isn’t flambuoyant gay-tacky. This is clueless-unattached-straight-guy-who-doesn’t-give-a-shit-tacky. He dresses as meticulously as he spells and verifies sources.

More incorrect premises:

Q: What about the two places he has chosen to live the last decade — West Hollywood and Miami South Beach?
A: Drudge does NOT live in South Beach (which has a large gay population but is no West Hollywood or Castro). I don’t know L.A., but it seems a stretch to call his old $600-a-month building around Hollywood and Vine “West Hollywood”.

He has told the Miami Herald and the Miami New Times that he doesn’t usually go south of 40th street in Miami Beach. Depending on who you ask, the border of South Beach can stretch as far north as 25th or so. He has interviewed from a beachfront condo. The general area where he would have lived (a long, long coastal stretch of deluxe hotels and condominiums) is neither a “gay neighborhood” nor South Beach.

XXX GAY RUMOR SOURCE #1: JEANNETTE WALLS XXX

Jeannette Walls is a gossip columnist with MSNBC. Unlike Drudge, she holds a bachelor’s degree (from Barnard) and a background in mainstream journalism up to a point. Unlike Drudge, she is politically liberal. Unlike Drudge, who focuses on the lives of elected officials, Walls doesn’t tell American taxpayers anything they conceivably need to know.

Drudge is interested in media, box office, public servants, and the politics betwixt the camps. Whether or not you agree with all his actions, there is value in reporting that a President gave a lover/intern top security clearance or “visited” with her on White House time – or the business dealings of the people who own the news networks, or the political agendas of entertainment executives. There’s no arguable “right to know” what Clinton’s up to nowadays, nor J-Lo’s marital foibles.

But Walls wasn’t writing a full bio on Drudge’s political or journalistic position. She was writing a history of gossip.

The Matt Drudge story, which begins and ends the book, is integrated into the introduction and the epilogue. Of the 21 chapters (not including the epilogue), “Citizen Reporter” is the second shortest at 10 pages, with the other histories averaging at 17 ½ pages a chapter. But when you cut the extraneous intro, the 30 full paragraphs in that first chapter boil down to this:

3 paragraphs – quotes from Matt’s speech before the 1998 National Press Club speech
1 paragraph – physical description of Drudge
2 paragraphs – overview of the speech
2 paragraphs – general overview of Drudge controversy
2 paragraphs – early history of gossip not related to Drudge story
18 paragraphs related to Drudge’s biography
1 paragraph – segueway into second chapter

(Plus one final paragraph of Drudge in the epilogue to close out the book.)

So…we have the equivalent of 18 or 19 paragraphs of “meat”. Now let’s look at the author’s bibliography at the back of the book:

Walls interviewed Doug Harbrecht, the host of the Washington Press Club. Since the entire transcript of that speech, not to mention a video, is available, interviewing Harbrecht seems superfluous to me. If you were interested in writing an entire book on Drudge, talking to Harbrecht might make sense…as a supplement to video footage, not a replacement thereof.

The bibliography reads, “I interviewed a number of people who know or knew Matthew Drudge, including Dan Mathews and David Cohen.” She lists five articles, most of which I have in my archives and the information from which I recognized. Some sources contained some erroneous information. It had Matt’s parents divorcing when he was in junior high school, whereas he states in Drudge Manifesto that they split up when he was six. (Yes, he says his “youth is a blur,” but I think a guy knows when his parents got divorced.) Based on my own research, I believe Walls would have noticed inconsistencies between news stories if she had given this project due diligence.

Other than Mathews and Cohen, Walls does not say which of her mysterious sources made what claim. She uses dramatic license in some cases: “Still failing to find himself, he moved back to the Washington area…” (Nothing that interesting. Matt lived in New York for a year, which is outrageously expensive even for an older person with a degree. Considering that he later moved to L.A. and hoped to write for Variety, he was probably just another young kid who didn’t understand the job market or his realistic options.) “Desperate to start a new life for himself, Drudge moved across the country to Los Angeles…” Not only does she get his age wrong (she claims she got the info from Robert Novak’s introduction of Matt on Crossfire) but she makes Much Ado About Nothing over a preference for warm climates.

Gossip, and Matt Drudge’s purported passion thereof, is heavily emphasized in Dish. Of course, again, the book’s a history of ….

Now for the good stuff.

Drudge didn’t go to college. Instead, he bummed around Paris for a month, then moved to New York City for a year, where he worked in a grocery store. Still failing to find himself, he moved back to the Washington area and became the night manager at a 7-Eleven in Takoma Park. Matt Drudge hung out with a crowd of promiscuous, openly gay men and dated several of them. “He was a freak, but that’s why we liked him,” said Dan Mathews…

So who’s this? One of those alleged freak-loving, promiscuous gay buddies?

… a friend from that period who would later go on to be a highly visible activist for PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). “He had a dark, brooding quality, but you never worried if he was going to snap, because it was like he already had.”
Google Dan Mathews and I believe you’ll turn up two things:

• His 1994 response in USA Todayto people who say animal testing can help find a cure for diseases : “Don’t get diseases in the first place, schmo.”
• He has been a source for Jeannette Walls before. Come to think of it, it’s kind of interesting she’d take the space to tout his PETA fame in there.

Sure you want to trust the judgment and integrity of this “reliable source”?

In all fairness to Mathews and PeTA, the “schmo” quote does not make clear the context in which it was given. However you feel about PeTA, its spokesman surely knows it’s difficult to get Joe Public to listen to him, let alone agree or care enough to support the organization. He knows the group is counting on him to effectively communicate their message to the world. If Matthews is being injudicious in his job – and in championing a cause he cares passionately about — then how maybe we should question his “analysis” of a friend from 11 years beforehand.

Now for the second and last Walls paragraph about the gay stuff:

“He loved to do wild, provocative things to draw attention to himself,” according to David Cohen. Once, when Drudge and Cohen were dating, they went to a nightclub, and by Cohen’s account, Drudge got kicked out for throwing a pitcher of beer into the air that came raining down on everyone around them…Well, that does it. I hope I never become famous, because I’ve got way too many “party stories” that college acquaintances will be more than happy to expose. By the way, how interesting or relevant is it that Matt once threw beer in the air at a bar? What someone did when he was drunk – unless they’re drunk all the time – is generally not newsworthy.

If you go out to bars or clubs enough, pretty much everyone will do something wild at one time or another. Again, a rumor – and biography – is all in its packaging. If you couch a comment in the right way, you can make an Everest out of Punxhatawney Phil’s home in the ground.

“He loved to freak me out by telling me gossip that he found out about me,” said Cohen. “It was very personal stuff and I have no idea how he found these things out about me.” Cohen said that Drudge seemed very comfortable and open with his sexuality, though they never talked about it. “In all the time I knew him, I don’t think we had a serious, in-depth conversation. It was always gossipy or shallow stuff. We were very young.”

• Maybe that last sentence tells you the depth and nature of their “relationship.”
• It takes two people to have a conversation about something.
• Considering the book topic , Walls probably focused her interview questions on Drudge’s interest in gossip.
• Gossip is rampant in the gay community. Either those items were rampant in their social circle or Matt was making them up.

The eggs-crabs-shower sex “climax”.

Somewhere in her interview with David Cohen, the “nice guy” who claimed to have dated Drudge thought it important to state that Matt liked to smear raw eggs over naked male bodies. He also had a purported fetish for having sex fully-clothed in the shower. A nasty case of crab lice was also deemed a relevant interview topic. (Remember that rumor & packaging thing? Married straight people do those things.)

What person of integrity would publicize stuff like that about an ex-boyfriend? There’s precious little information to go on besides Cohen’s and Mathews’ side of the story. Obviously Matt Drudge wasn’t on their good side. We could speculate that the gay men felt betrayed, or felt politically and morally justified in “outing” someone whose public persona at age 31 didn’t jive with the 19-year-old they socialized with – someone who helped cause the impeachment of a nominally gay-friendly President.

People change, and they show different sides of themselves to different friends. Whether Matt had gay relationships with these “promiscuous gay men”, his “gossipy, shallow” conversations with David probably didn’t include politics. Maybe some of Drudge’s ex-Washington buddies were taking his metamorphosis too personally. Maybe they jumped to the same conclusions that so many people have – that Matt Drudge is “far right” and therefore a hypocrite for having once been their friend and now supporting a party that undermines the civil liberties and legal protection their community is working toward. Maybe there are other vendettas. Possibilities abound.

Like I said, and as Dish documents, Drudge had a difficult adolescence and spent way too much time by himself…probably delaying his social development. At first I bought David Cohen’s story because he gave his name, said he’d be willing to sign an affidavit, and because I didn’t yet know anything about Matt Drudge. But saying you’re willing to sign something and doing so when held to one’s word are two different things.

We don’t know what was going on or, if there was a grain of truth in the fetish rumors, in what context they occurred. Matt might have been really depressed or lonely at that time, he could have been under the influence of drugs (or Cohen and Mathews could have). Maybe he just hung out with them because they went to dance clubs. But surely there is lots of dirt where this came from that could make Drudge’s life hell if he pursued this stink.

Nevertheless, I doubt a guy who discusses a purported ex-boyfriend’s sex fetishes with one gossip columnist and confirms them with another (George Rush) is cathartizing in the spirit of National Coming Out Day. If there is any grain of truth in these claims, it’s nonetheless a sleazy betrayal of his community to expose a fellow gay man’s kinkiness to a straight audience. In my humble opinion, David Cohen has proven himself a disgrace to both his communities.

If Walls’ conversation with Cohen went on long enough to steer in the direction of eggs and crabs, why is the chapter on Matt Drudge so short and superficial? Couldn’t more of her “number of people who know or knew Matthew Drudge” give her anything more to write about besides sex talk and the verbatim quotes I mentioned?

Dish didn’t serve up eggs and crabs, however. In Mediabistro and Page Six, Jeannette Walls purports to be either too prudent or grossed out by Cohen’s “Drudge sex stories” to include them in her book. “I decided, I don’t want to go there.” She doesn’t mention that in another Dish chapter, Robert Mitchum smeared his own naked bod with ketchup. (Eggs worse than ketchup? Maybe Mathews, her Drudge source from PETA, convinced her to become a vegan.)

So let’s get this straight: She holds back on the eggs, crabs, and clothed showers in her book, but unleashes it in the press.

Of all people, a gossip columnist knows what she can get away with and what she can’t.

Elsewhere in Dish, Jeannette Walls carefully recounts the National Enquirer’s methods to protect itself legally, as well as the logistical difficulty and career risks in suing for slander or libel. Walls’ publisher knew she was a gossip columnist and that someone mentioned in the book could challenge her in the press. Someone besides Drudge did – Tina Brown, who according to Walls, stalked the executive whom she later married. “My publisher and I absolutely stand behind everything I’ve said,” she said about both Drudge and Brown.

HarperCollins, like the rest of English-language trade publishing, is run by a global multimedia, multinational conglomerate (in Drudge speak, it would be MurdochNewsHarperCollinsWilliamMorrowAvon). In some ways, Rupe’s empire is in a better position to absorb the cost, time and energy of defending itself against a libel suit than Drudge would be to pursue one. Sure, Matt has the money – but not the time or energy. Sidney Blumenthal had to use his own savings to sue him – and dropped the suit when the money ran out. Even with a pro bono defense attorney, Matt Drudge has certainly learned how much time and energy a lawsuit can take. He told Playboy he had trouble getting representation because “no one wanted to take dirty old me.” Not to mention that the lawsuit was pending at the time of Walls’ interviews with Cohen and Mathews and the release of the book. How can you run what was then a one-man news site and handle two lawsuits?

Anyway, Walls is smart enough to recognize a publisher’s limits. Despite a few salacious tidbits, Dish is supposed to be a legitimate history of the gossip world – not a catalog of gossip. Including Matt’s “beer in the air” and dating history is one thing. But for such a short bio, the irrelevant fetish allegations didn’t fit into the framework and would have pushed the envelope too far – especially since this was her first book.

The logistics of a career in gossip

I would argue that journalism’s deadline-driven nature compromises news and makes gossip more vicious. That’s one redeeming quality of the Drudge Report, whatever its cons. If Matt doesn’t have his own exclusive one day or one week, no biggie. He’s always got links; he’s always on the watch. Gossip columnists need product – now.

“Every day is a minor nightmare,” Walls told Mediabistro of her daily life as the gossip queen of MSNBC. “It’s a struggle getting the lead item; you want something to anchor the column. First of all, I look at about 20 or 30 websites, which takes about 2 or 3 hours, because you don’t want to go and report on something that’s already out there. Then I get on the phone and call my sources. ‘What did you hear?’

…Three o’clock is my self-imposed deadline. If it’s 4 p.m. and I don’t have anything, I go into panic mode and call up people saying, ‘You’ve got to give me something!’ There must be something going on. Please, please, I’ll do anything!” So I do a lot of groveling…”

Exactly what incentive does Jeannette Walls have to accurately report news items?

The Timing of Dish

According to her Mediabistro interview, Jeannette Walls left Esquire in 1996 to write Dish, which took “about two years”.

Let’s review what happened around the time she finished her book on the history of gossip. Lewinskygate hit the fan. Drudge’s star rose. Sidney Blumenthal filed a $30 million lawsuit against him. Then came Drudge’s flap with FOX News about wanting to show a fetal photo on his television show.

There is no way in hell that an author or publisher would release a book on the history of gossip between the years 1999-2000 without at least a small profile on Matt Drudge. The paperback version of Dish even sported a brand-new cover…a fedora.

It may be helpful to know a few facts about publishing. While a fiction author generally must finish a book before seeking an agent to secure a publisher, it is my understanding that nonfiction projects are generally pitched to agents (and proposals to editors) before completion, when the direction of the book can still be shaped. I can’t know what stage Dish was in during the various Drudge controversies, but chances are great that the “Citizen Reporter” chapter was researched and written under a rush.

The meaning of “all well sourced”.

When students write term papers, they generally don’t read more than the required number of sources they are required to cite. Anybody can say, “I spoke to several friends of his” while naming only two. Geez, I could write a tell-all on Drudge. All I’d need to do is change the wording on a few articles, make up a few cool rumors, and slap my name on it. It wouldn’t make it true – but if the year’s nonfiction market for the subject were strong enough, I could get it published without too much legal wrangling.

Lots of rumors piggyback off one another and many old Drudge acquaintances would be more than happy to jump on the mutiny bandwagon. It’s easy and cheap to say, “Yeah, and I heard THIS…” “And I heard THIS…” Eventually, layers of rumor become thick that they look convincing.
The sources Walls DOES cite include compelling details that weren’t in her book, wouldn’t have fit its angle, and might have changed a reader’s perception of Drudge and the rumors ascribed to him.

Jeannette Walls, whose research of her topic is so thorough that she still thinks Matt Drudge embraces “ultra-conservative values”, had already decided how she felt about her “complex, textured” bio subject. A reader not so close to her sources could have considered other variables.

Matt Drudge, by his own admission, was left alone a lot growing up, had few friends in high school, and is still alone most of the time. You don’t grow from an adolescent loner into a well-adjusted adult without making lots of social blunders along the way. The only way to develop social skills is by being around others, so I don’t doubt accounts that he did silly things to get attention and made an ass of himself at a later age than most people. But sometimes homosexuality can be a lazy label to smack on somebody with developing social skills or unusual interests for their age or gender.

If you spend a huge part of your formative years alone, you develop a high tolerance for solitude. I’d be surprised if Matt doesn’t get antsy going a day without any private time. (Nor can I imagine that fame or notoriety helps anyone accrue a long list of genuine, unconditional friends.)

My guess is that “the truth about Drudge” is both less compelling and more embarrassing than the gay rumors. Someone who pointedly comments that he is dating “a very elegant woman” or “a woman with boobs and rollers” or “I was nearly married a few years ago” may not be so at pains to hide what side he’s swinging on as the amount of swinging going on. Anyone indiscreet enough to tell the press that “I was lonely. I still am…” or repeatedly insists that “the media is his mistress” just might be telling the truth. If Drudge’s long-standing friend, whom he continues to invite on his radio show, told the Washington Post in the late 90s that he’s “very shy with women” and once came to a pool with every square inch of skin covered…maybe homosexuality is a too-facile explanation to dismiss a more complex issue.

A description of the one item that IS documented and verifiable – Matt Drudge’s a1998 address before the National Press Club – is definitely very wrong.

Dish begins not only with Matt Drudge, but his introduction to the podium that day.

An awkward moment of silence followed (NOPE!), and then polite applause. (NOPE!) Matt Drudge stepped up to the podium. He was only thirty-one years old, a young man dressed in old man’s clothes: a cream-colored suit with unfashionably wide lapels (NOPE!), a blue shirt and striped tie, and tortoiseshell glasses.

Fact: There was no awkward moment of silence – not by ANY stretch of the imagination. While there were certainly people there who didn’t like Matt, there was laughter from the audience during the introduction and immediate, appropriately enthusiastic applause as he stepped to the podium. He was smiling and smirking a lot, but he immediately threw himself into his speech with a regular cadence. It would be a real stretch to say his voice faltered at any point. I’m not idealizing Matt Drudge’s speech or demeanor here. I am pointing out inconsistencies that make me question Jeannette Walls’ reports, premises, and research efforts.
Those who don’t like Matt Drudge would say that his pre-speech facial expressions were snarky, smarmy, or erratic. He was laughing a lot during a very long introduction – the most hostile introduction I’ve ever heard anyone give a speaker.

The jacket, which does look in photos like it might have had “unfashionably wide lapels”, appeared on video to be new and of good fabric — but a size too large. (He left it unbuttoned during most of the speech.) It looked a little weird because of the shoulder pads, and the hat accentuated the misfit.

“Applause for Matt Drudge in Washington at the Press Club,” Drudge joked. “Now there’s a scandal.” He was nervous at first, but just as his voice was about to falter, he reached over and grabbed his fedora and placed it on his head.(NOPE!) With his talisman, this relic that evoked populist tabloid journalism of Walter Winchell’s days, Drudge found his voice.( NOPE!) For the next forty minutes, he spoke passionately–if not always eloquently–about his love of journalism, about the importance of the unfettered flow of information, about how scandals, while sometimes ugly, were important to democracy and to “individual liberty.”

Fact: Drudge had the hat on when the videotaping began. During Doug Harbrecht’s introduction, Matt carefully removed his hat, smoothed his hair, put on his glasses, made a wink or funny face or two at friends – all the while giving a series of smiles and smirks. On cue, he schlepped his hat, notes, and “exhibits” (news articles) up to the podium with him. At the end of his speech, he immediately removed his glasses and put the hat back on. Hardly an exact fit with the tone of Walls’ introduction.

Matt Drudge was far from a polished speaker that day. He was brash, goofy, and unintentionally funny. He kept his glasses low on his nose, stared at his notes too much – but nothing that really matched what Jeannette Walls describes in her book. Indeed, if Walls had troubled to watch the videotape or at least found another eyewitness, fact would have out-sensationalized fiction. But Matt addressed hostile questions promptly and effectively. I found the speech sound and eloquent. I do question Walls’ (or Harbrecht’s) use of the word “passionate”.

Keeping in mind that different individuals have different perceptions of the same event, some of these adjectives do not sound right to me and are not words I would expect to hear from an eyewitness. In fact, this “interpretation” reminds me of the BS I used to write in high school when I waited until the last minute to do a term paper.

Also notable is that Walls’ source, Doug Harbrecht, could not possibly have been able to witness what Walls writes. Matt sat two seats to the right of the high podium and Harbrecht was seated to the immediate left. During the speech, Harbrecht was responsible for taking written questions from the audience. Toward its end, the C-SPAN camera shows him staring glumly into space with his elbow on the table, cheek resting against his palm. (Not entirely polite when you’re seated in front of an audience, on a slightly raised platform, next to a speaker.) In any case, there was a huge controversy about the suitability of inviting Matt Drudge as a guest speaker. However Doug Harbrecht personally felt about Matt Drudge – which from the available transcript does not appear all that positive – this was a tough day on the job for him.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The opening paragraphs of Dish and the DVD of the National Press Club speech tell two different stories. Unlike the racy “gay” stories, The Press Club speech is documented and verifiable. If Walls can’t get that right – and use logical, appropriate research methods to get her information– how reliable is the rest of her book’s content?

Other errors

Also piquing my curiosity because I had seen no record of in my archives is Walls’ assertions that Matt traded in his Geo Metro for a Porsche – something Drudge denied in an e-mail to reporter Cathy Seipp. Though Matt’s vehicular preference isn’t any more relevant than his sexual preference, two articles in the Miami Herald and the Miami New Times mention a newly purchased Corvette that replaced his oft-mentioned Geo. I’m not inclined to think the Porsche story is true.

A sampling of Jeannette Walls’ comments on her Drudge report:

“I think the chapter about him is quite sympathetic.”

“I quote several gay former friends…” (Note to Jeannette: “Two” does not equal “Several”.)

“It’s all well sourced. If he offers you a bite of his omelet, take a pass.”

In case you’re wondering who raised this charming chick…

Jeannette recounts her crappy-yet-inspiring childhood in The Glass Castle. To be fair, this story deserves its critical acclaim. It does make you wonder how someone who endured some serious cases of child neglect — and whose family went “on the skedaddle” whenever someone owed money or got in trouble with the law — would develop an integrated sense of ethics. I don’t want to go into an ad hominem attack here. But I do feel she could have made a greater effort to protect the privacy of her youngest sister, “the most sensitive” of the four Walls children who “hit a rough patch” and stabbed their mother when she was still living at home.

After her court hearing, the author’s sister moved to another state to distance herself from her dysfunctional family and her past. Even though Maureen does not support the book and still has emotional health issues the family is still “trying to get her help” for, Jeannette Walls states her full given name in the book. Since “Maureen” is one of the woman’s two middle names, I’m sure Jeannette could have spared that detail without compromising the integrity of her narrative.

If Jeannette Walls lacks the creativity and decency to avoid unnecessary violations of her sister’s privacy, I can’t imagine she’d demonstrate a greater level of consideration with her gossip subjects. Especially given the time constraints and motivation to come up with a sensational scoop on the most relevant person in the history of news at the time of Dish’s publication – Matt Drudge.

NEXT TIME: Part 2 of 2– Holes uncovered in David Brock’s Blinded by the Right and Alec Baldwin’s allegations.

RegoPark is a writer with a background in marketing communications. She is currently writing a novel about PR and the alternative media.