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Three Minneapolis TV News Directors speak of being wary of Drudge...

Media Wary Of Drudge Sex 'Report'
BY BRIAN LAMBERT
St. Paul Pioneer Press

The word most frequently used by journalists to describe their response to the latest sex scandal being fomented by the Drudge Report is "circumspect." That's a synonym for "wary."

As most news consumers know by now, Matt Drudge, attempting to capture lightning in a bottle again, "reported" last week that "several news organizations" were looking into reports of yet another intern and yet another Democratic presidential candidate. At first glance, it looked like d?j? vu all over again.

The difference this time is that major news organizations - some of whom were named by Drudge as among those investigating the story- didn't use the "it's out there" excuse to short-circuit the usual journalistic checks and balances. Like where you make sure something is true before you commit it to print or air.

Locally, rumors of an alleged relationship by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry were instant fodder for talk radio. Some of the discussions, like Chad Hartman's and Dan Barreiro's on KFAN, were heavily tempered with skepticism of Drudge's political agenda. But in the grander scheme of things, they served to amplify Drudge's story.

In local TV newsrooms, only KSTP-TV, Channel 5, gave the story any significant play, and then via political analyst Steve Smith's piece on how dirty-trick rumors are spread. But it, too, amplified a story still lacking in one critical element: facts.

"The problem today that we didn't face 10 or 15 years ago is the explosion of talk radio and the Internet," says KSTP news director Chris Berg. "When you get both the Internet and talk radio going on a story, it creates a situation where our viewer is asking us, 'Is there anything to this?' And, frankly, they're wondering if you have a political agenda if you don't report it. In many ways, it's a lose-lose proposition for us. It creates a very difficult situation."

Tom Lindner, Berg's counterpart at KARE-TV, Channel 11, found this situation less difficult. "We're a little more circumspect - no question about it. We looked at this one, and someone over here said, 'If we try to live under the standard of two sources for every story, the Drudge Report is a quarter of a source,' " he said. "Just because something is 'out there' doesn't mean we report it - that's not our standard."

Jeff Kiernan, news director at WCCO-TV, Channel 4, likewise laid off the story. "I think you always evaluate stories based on where they come from, their sourcing and background," he said.

As for the "it's out there" excuse, Kiernan concedes it's a tricky situation.

"That is kind of the quagmire," he says, referring to the Internet/talk radio/cable TV axis' ability to create instant awareness in the minds of millions of people of a story that may or may not be true, that may or may not be a piece of political guerrilla warfare.

"The real problem is that viewers' threshold for this kind of thing shifts because of talk radio, the Internet and the rest," he said. "As a reporter, you have to be very careful how your judgments shift over time to satisfy the viewer."

"I don't think there's any question the media has been more circumspect about this one," says Steve Schier, political science professor at Carleton College and a frequent TV political analyst. "Drudge, I think, is regarded by most journalists as kind of an unguided missile, and there is also, I believe, a wariness born of experience among reporters, at being used as someone's hatchet man. You can really damage your reputation as a news purveyor if you play
into this stuff."

Schier sees nine months of dirt-peddling, smears, attacks and distortions ahead. "It's going to be a pretty grim year," he says.