Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge has been signed by ABC to host a weekly radio talkshow. ABC Radio executive Geoff Rich boasted that “never before has a national talkshow debuted in so many top markets.” (AP,7/8/99)
ABC seems unperturbed by accusations that Drudge often purveys inaccurate information. A notable example was the retraction Drudge had to issue in 1997 after publishing a story alleging that White House aide Sidney Blumenthal beat his wife.
On his Fox News Channel talk show this month, Drudge commented on an L.A. Times story about George W. Bush’s war record: “Well, I don’t ever remember the Los Angeles Times doing full exposes on Clinton dodging the draft… I don’t remember front page treatment on that story the way this one seems to be coming out 15 months ahead.”
Of course, the L.A. Times, like most other major newspapers, closely followed the issue of Clinton’s draft record throughout the 1992 campaign, publishing several front-page stories devoted to examining his efforts toavoid fighting in Vietnam. In fact, one lengthy page 1 article, published September 2, 1992, broke many new details of Clinton’s draft history, and played a large role in reviving the draft as a campaign issue for the Republicans going into the fall elections.
Though Drudge refers to himself as a journalist, ABC spokesperson Michelle Bleiberg told AP that “Matt Drudge is an entertainment brand. He is considered separate from the news side of things.”
ABC‘s current laissez-faire mood contrasts starkly with its attitude last November, when the network spiked an Oliver Stone-produced documentary called “Classified.” The show–which was produced under the aegis of ABC‘s entertainment division–explored stories such as the crash of TWA flight 800 and connections between CIA-backed Contra rebels and drug trafficking.
The program was killed after complaints from the National Transportation Safety Board and from staffers in ABC‘s news division. In a statement, ABC declared that it had become “increasingly uncomfortable with the confusion we felt could exist between fact-based entertainment and hard news. We came to believe that television viewers could find it difficult to distinguish between the two forms and we decided not to continue development on the project.”
If ABC believes there is a danger in blurring the line between “fact-based entertainment” and “hard news”–a danger that led the network to cancel Oliver Stone’s documentary–why has it signed a self-declared “journalist” to host an “entertainment show” that will frequently discuss political news? Is there one standard for people like Stone, who are perceived to be on the left, and another one for conservatives like Drudge?
ACTION: Please call ABC and ask them to use a single standard when it comes to distinguishing news from entertainment.
Robert Iger, President, ABC 47 W. 66th St. New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-456-7777 Fax: 212-456-4297 Email: netaudr@abc.com
