Hats Off to Unofficial Journalism!

The Drudge cast shows we're all journalists now.

Adam Clayton Powell III from the February 1998 issue

"The notion of wearing a press card in the band of my fedora, the way I saw it done in the movies or in illustrations in comic books, struck me as a wonderful way to live one's life, and I never wanted to be anything else but a reporter with a press card."

--Charles Kuralt, (c)1997 "Interview a Journalist," The Newseum

It was all so easy then.

Walter Lippmann was the reigning columnist, Edward R. Murrow's
voice boomed out, "This is London," and on the big screen, Humphrey Bogart played the no-nonsense, hard-drinking, chain-smoking, two-fisted newsman ("journalist" was considered pretentious). No doubt Bogart had a rack full of fedoras.

It was more than enough to inspire Kuralt and a generation of teenagers who dreamed of crusading page-one remakes or romantic foreign assignments in London or Paris, where the job required a trench coat and a fedora.

Now, the big newsrooms are smoke-free environments littered with empty Evian bottles where cigarette butts used to be. The newsmen have been replaced by journalists, or at least reporters, most of whom now are not men.

And instead of the gelatin-print black-and-white clarity of Charles Kuralt's youth, we have the muted ambiguities and confusing convergence of the Internet, where no one knows if you are a dog, let alone a journalist.

So who is a journalist, anyway? And does it matter?

Of course, we recall the world of Kuralt's youth through the gauze of nostalgia and late-night movies. There was considerable confusion then. Edward R. Murrow may have won the awards, but the number-one news program on radio was anchored, as we would say today, by a fast-talking vaudeville entertainer greeting "Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea." Walter Winchell wore a fedora, but there was spirited debate whether he was a newsman, an entertainer, or just a gossip.

In other words, Walter Winchell was the Matt Drudge of his day.

Matt Drudge, for those who do not follow arcane journalism debates or the annals of libel law, lives in Los Angeles and files reports on the Internet. Just like Winchell, Drudge brings us a fast-paced pastiche of inside gossip, rumor, innuendo, and, oh yes, news. Just like Winchell, Drudge has a big following. Just like Winchell, Drudge is sometimes wrong. So is The New York Times.

But one mistake landed Drudge in serious trouble, on the wrong end of a libel suit. It is not important to know the details of the error, and of Drudge's subsequent admission of error (at the Times, they call it a "correction"). It is important to note that journalists have the protection of the Bill of Rights, and specifically the First Amendment, and the courts have given the media a pretty wide berth to publish or broadcast what editors believe to be the truth, in the public interest.

But Matt Drudge does not have an editor. Matt Drudge does not even claim to be a journalist. In fact, he says he is not a journalist. But he does wear a fedora, at least for his publicity photos.

Does freedom of the press belong to someone who says he is not part of the press? Wait, it gets even more confusing. When Lippmann was writing his column, it appeared in respectable newspapers with professional editors and prominent publishers. When Edward R. Murrow and Walter Winchell were on the radio, they appeared on respectable networks with professional editors (for Murrow, at least), backed by prominent broadcast barons.

But Matt Drudge's work is not in a respectable newspaper or on a national broadcast network. It appears on the Internet. Anyone anywhere in the world can read it. You can link to it via America Online, but the important point is you can link to it from anywhere in the world, for free--Drudge on demand, worldwide.

So when Matt Drudge is sued, who is his publisher?