Wrap-up on Drudge Lawsuit

The Blumenthal-Drudge case, now concluded, is described in full in "If This Ain't Libel ..." by Roger Parloff, Brill's Content, Fall 2001 (v.4, n.6), pp. 94-113. I'm really happy to have the story of this lawsuit and its origin (on Drudge's Web site in 1997) wrapped up in a tidy package, at last, because it raises a lot of important points for discussion. These include:

• What is "recklessness" in journalism?
• Are anonymous sources ever enough, with no named sources in tow?
• How vulnerable are journalists, in general, to "planted" information, whether truth or lies?
• How bad are the effects of a lie when the whole story is deleted and a retraction both posted and e-mailed to subscribers within 24 hours of its Web publication?
• How much protection should a public figure have? (Blumenthal was a White House aide in the Clinton administration in 1997. He had been a journalist, author and playwright.)

I prefer to discuss Matt Drudge as a journalist -- not a very careful one, but a journalist all the same. Journalists employed by newspapers and TV news stations have made and will make the same kinds of mistakes he has made.