Drudge match covers politics and the law
For good measure, Blumenthal vs. Drudge is also about the outer reaches of libel law, the responsibility of Internet service providers, who's a journalist and whether the truth matters when it's shipped in bites and bytes. And, as the judge says, it's about "gossip and rumor."
 |
| America Online breathes a sigh of relief as Drudge case is dismissed. |
 |
Last Sept. 11, Saul Armando Lara knocked on the door of a small, Hollywood, Calif., apartment at 9:05 p.m. and handed Matt Drudge a summons. Drudge, the neo-cyberspace gossip columnist who passes on rumors, facts and hints of media stories to come, was being sued by a top White House aide.
This wasn't your run-of the-mill lawsuit. White House senior adviser and former journalist Sidney Blumenthal had had it. Others have written about Blumenthal, mainly criticizing him for using his journalistic skills to lovingly tout President Bill Clinton in mainstream publications such as the New Republic and the New Yorker.
'Exclusive e-mail'
But Drudge had gone too far. On Aug. 10, 1997, he sent out an "exclusive" e-mail to his 85,000 non-paying subscribers telling them that angry Republican operatives intended to pass the word around that Blumenthal "has a spousal-abuse past that has been effectively covered up." He hinted that court records existed.
Calling the mailing "scurrilous lies," Blumenthal's lawyer William McDaniel, fired off a letter Aug. 11. "You acted with actual malice in that you knew that these allegations were false, but you published them anyway," wrote McDaniel to Drudge. Drudge quickly retracted the story by sending another e-mail and saying he'd been used by Republican operatives.
Despite Drudge's retraction and apology within 24 hours, the Blumenthals filed a 137-page lawsuit. Claiming defamation, the Blumenthals are suing Drudge and America Online, which provides a home for Drudge's writings, for $30 million. On Wednesday, the judge in the case, Paul L. Freidman, dismissed AOL as a defendant, though, ruling that Congress exempted AOL and other interactive computer services from such lawsuits when it passed the Decency Act of 1996.
Both sides will be back in court June 2 to set a trial date.
Since going into business for himself on the Internet in early 1995, Drudge has published reams of information on an informal basis (he has no deadline), sometimes hitting the jackpot with scoops that leave other journalists bristling with envy. But Drudge, who once boasted of an 80 percent accuracy rate, has also been just plain wrong. And that's what Blumenthal says about these charges of spousal abuse against his wife of 21 years, Jacqueline Jordan Blumenthal, who also works at the White House.
Character vs. issues
What's notable about this case is how the cast of characters is so distinctly mixed up in the issues. Is it strictly a case that promises to wade into uncharted waters of the Internet and might help determine what constitutes libel in cyberspace? Or is it a curious personal and political grudge match?
The personalities of Blumenthal vs. Drudge are as much entangled as the issues. Drudge, admittedly no friend of the president, takes a cyber jab at Blumenthal, a close pal of the Clintons. To compound matters, Drudge shot the spousal abuse e-mail out to the world (12 million people subscribe to AOL) a day before Blumenthal began his first working day at the White House. His wife, who runs the White House fellows program, came into work Monday morning to find a printout of the Drudge Report sitting on her desk, as did Blumenthal.
Blumenthal and his wife say they are irreparably harmed by the report. "It's still a very distressing event," says Blumenthal. "It's not an event that has a quick stop to it. The effect of the defamation continues today. It still has an effect on us. There's not a day that doesn't go by that we don't have to deal with this."
Drudge and his attorneys, on the other hand, have a dim view of why Blumenthal is asking for an astronomical award. They see it as a presidential vendetta, particularly since both Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have publicly endorsed the Blumenthals' suit.
'Chill' the ability to publish?
"When you really look to see what's behind the suit, I think the circumstances raise very strong suspicions that the purpose of the suit is to serve a different agenda rather than a straightforward recovery by someone who feels defamed," says Manuel Klausner, a libertarian lawyer who has taken on the case pro bono with the backing of a conservative California think tank. "But its purpose is rather to chill Drudge's ability to publish the Drudge report."
Drudge initially was a darling of the mainstream media. Reporters couldn't interview him enough, particularly after he began breaking some big stories, such as Connie Chung's firing, Bob Dole's running mate and the first story, albeit a rip-off from a Newsweek reporter, about Kathleen Willey, who claims Clinton tried to kiss her in the Oval Office.
"I call Matt Drudge the Thomas Paine of the Internet," says Klausner. " He's in the tradition of the early American leafleteer who used to circulate material that was critical of government."
Virus in the press
Lately, though, the mainstream press - ostensibly Drudge's fellow reporters - have recanted their once-enthusiastic support. "He's quite a charming little rogue," says Joe Conason of the New York Observer. "But he's dangerous because he's showed up at a point where standards have been lowered already. He's like a virus that shows up after the immune system has already been compromised."
Blumenthal, too, has his critics. He has been so unwaveringly pro-Clinton that when he announced he was going to work for Clinton, his former employer, The New Republic, suggested Blumenthal should be given back pay. For 27 years, Blumenthal has been a journalist, achieving a prominence despite some claims that he has defamed his targets. Chief among them is David Horowitz, who founded the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in Los Angeles, and was the target of an unflattering Blumenthal story. Horowitz is now bankrolling Drudge's defense.
Others criticize Blumenthal for being disingenuous, especially after Independent Council Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Blumenthal to learn the origin of negative stories about Starr's investigation into the Monica Lewinsky scandal. They see a certain insincerity in Blumenthal getting in high dudgeon over Starr demanding information about Blumenthal's relationship with journalists while, at the same time, Blumenthal is ordering Drudge to reveal the names of the Republican operatives who leaked the damaging story to him.
'Extreme hypocrisy'
"If Blumenthal is sincere in his professed outrage at Kenneth Starr, then his position on the Drudge issue suggests extreme hypocrisy," Wired editor Jon Katz says by e-mail, "as he is working to chill discussion in the digital culture just as he argued the independent counsel was acting to chill criticism of that office by Washington journalists."
It may come down to how Drudge will be defined. Is he a gossip columnist who's entitled to a wide freedom on the Web, not unlike a reporter working for a tabloid? Or is he a reporter who is subject to the same restrictions on libel and defamation as the rest of the mainstream journalism community?
To Blumenthal's lawyer, William McDaniel of Baltimore, the answer is simple: Drudge is a scourge to be reined in. "I think this is one of the most egregious cases of defamation I've ever seen," McDaniel says. "It's a blatant accusation about criminal activities and there's absolutely no basis in criminal fact. In many libel cases that are written about, there is a kernel of truth. But there's nothing here."
But to Katz and others, Drudge is simply an online gossip, not a reporter for The New York Times. Nor does he carry the kind of credibility a newspaper would.
Online gossip
"Drudge is a gossip columnist, and one functioning online," wrote Katz. "As such, he has and should have wide latitude. He should correct his mistakes and he did, and I'd be amazed if Blumenthal could prove lasting damage or harm.
"This is a bad and ominous suit, chilling by its very existence, and the on-line community ought to rally behind Drudge aggressively and enthusiastically."
But the issue of libel in this case might not involve the Internet, say some experts. Certainly the case focuses on the Internet when it comes to AOL, and whether it is responsible for libel written by people who appear on its service.
Blumenthal's lawyer argues that the service is liable because the Internet provider has a contract with Drudge; AOL says it's not unlike a bookstore, which cannot be held responsible for everything written in the books it sells.
Yes, the story moved like lightening because of the Internet, but stories move quickly on television, too, says Sandra Baron, executive director of the Libel Defense Resource Center. Baron says that when it comes to libel law, writing on the Internet is not so different than if Drudge had typed up and mailed out allegations of spousal abuse. The standard for libel is what you believe to be true on the day of publication. If on the day Drudge sent out his e-mail, says Baron, he believed the story to be true based on his sources, he should not be liable under libel laws.
"I tend, in this instance, to take the position that I don't know who is right or wrong," says Baron. "Sidney Blumenthal was allegedly defamed. As best I know, Drudge has said, 'Blumenthal's right. They were false, but I'm justified because I had good sources at the time I published. Now I feel used, but at the time they were sound and reliable sources.'
"Neither side looks crazy to me."