Drudge Breaks White House Embargo

If journalists have access to the speech then why shouldn’t the regular public? Are journalists more deserving or better people than the rest of us?
Power to the people, thank you Matt Drudge.

If someone at the CIA hands over secrets to the NYT and they publish them, is that “breaking the embargo”?

Yes, common courtesy was overlooked, but at least when Drudge releases secret White House info, no one’s safety is in jeopardy. Take note New York Times.

Why is it a story when Drudge breaks an embargo but when “real” journalists make up stories and the documents to “prove” them it is not news?

good for him. he could like CBS just publish some lie he made up and then berate the president with it then stick by it AFTER hes fired and sued.

Drudge has repeatedly said he doesn’t follow embargos. Whoever leaked the speach to Drudge, (effectively breaking the embargo) was the one who lacks integrity.

Drudge has far more integrity than much of the old media. The few times he has been wrong he has promptly corrected. Old media outlets like al New York Times can take 8 months to correct, if they ever do.

I agree with the previous poster. Drudge is not a journalist; he’s interested in sensationalism, not truth. Lucky for him most of us are interested in sensationalism, too.

whatever, nffcnnr – you slight Drudge as a non-journalist because your paradigm of news is old and out dated. Like your choice of news outlet [we did get it...] you lament the loss of ‘honest’ news sources and want everything to still be a 24-72 news cycle. sorry chump, your grandpa’s 25 cent coffee doesn’t exist. deal with that…

Excellent point. Drudge is above all that protocol and mess, and get’s straight to the business of getting information to the people.
Drudge is not a journalist – he links what others have said or written. Which is why criticism of his as a journalist is just plain ignorant.

Why is this even a story? I mean it’s not like he went to print with a story about a top secret national security program.

Eggman is a lost cause of the GOP.

I couldn’t agree more. Drudge is well known for altering headlines to serve the right, linking “news” to his own site to inflate clicks and for going soft on any right wing politician unless it serves his purposes not to. This man is no journalist….he should be writing for toilet mags. Next, please.

Who cares if his pre-written speech was released moments before he read it aloud to the American people?! What is the big deal? It isn’t like he said anything worth noting anyway. Why is this even news?

They’re just sore, because “EMBARGOED” is the secret handshake, wink, and nod for liberalists — I mean “journalists”.
They don’t spill their own secrets.

Why do the ‘legitimate media’ get an advance copy of any speech to begin with? Well, so the WH Press can go have a ‘hot toddy’ downtown and have time to submit their scathing attacks… oops… I mean expert analysis of the speech as if they had actually heard it.
I, for one, believe the press should get NO advance copies of anything, should have to make transcriptions their own lazy selves, and perhaps we’d get the chance as Americans to hear it at the same time that everone else gets to. It hightens the anticipation, helps the remarks make more of an impact, and stops the so-called experts from quoting snippets of the speech before the actual speech.
LET THE STORY HAPPEN! Viewers will gladly watch the results as they unfold, rather than sucking up the handfed drivel from anchors who wouldn’t know a new inititive if it bit em’ in the keester.

Your the man Matt! Question Rhonda… in the old days would they have stopped the presses for this story?

ANN COMPTON (?) felt it necessary to tattle to the White House Press Office?
How sad her life must be as a self-appointed journalism-cop.
Who, in this day and age, would be surprised that Drudge scooped everybody.
Noone will admit it but EVERYONE checks out The Drudge Report first.
Fail to do so at your own risk.

It’s Bushs fault!

This one is so easy it defies any
further description, despite re-
ports to the contrary! News is
news irregardless of the timing.
If anybody thinks Mattman is going
to be stopped, think again. He’s
the ultimate veteran of the info-
web and he gives both sides of all
the stories.

Ohh – you all must mean ‘respectable’ journalists like Dan Rather(gate) and all of those at the New York Times who are nothing but truthful and honest people. (sic)
At least the journalists who lean to the right still have an ounce of impartiality. All you have to do is read the first 2 or 3 lines of a story to tell that the writer is a Bush hating liberal.
Thank God for Drudge!! – and Fox News!!!

GOD BLESS MATT DRUDGE!!!

Drudge is the man! Where would we be without him? Same with Rush. But you libs just can’t understand that the day has come where light is being shed on you and all of your garbage and it is guys like Matt and Rush that have led the way.!!!!!

Interesting how when a journalist isn’t out to “change the world [into a leftists' paradise]” and instead simply conveys unvarnished information, the left decides they are not legitimate.
You can disparage Drudge all day and night if it makes you feel better, but it doesn’t change the reality that he has more impact now than, say, your icon Katie Couric does.

nffcnnr, Drudge is as much a journalist and has every bit the ethics of any so-called “journalist” you can name, else how was B. Franklin ever considered a journalist. Face it, you are a communications bigot.

If oil went up as one post says why is gasoline down? Oil has dropped $25 a bbl in the last month. The dems wouldn’t fill it when they had the chance at $9.50. We better take care of the oil as the who;e world runs on it!!! Many products are made with it! If we aren’t careful the same things will happen again.Drilling projects are being canceled as unprofitable already. The same old cycle.

Drudge ditto heads followed his link to this article … funny.
One asked remember Whitewater … yup I do … Drudge was one of the first schills for the Republicans back then and cost the US Taxpayers MILLIONS of dollars by promoting an investigation of the President that FOUND NO WRONG DOING. His muckracking cost us millions and potentially caused great damage to America by reporting on the private sex life of a President. Clinton could have served the country better if the wealthy and their paid schill’s like Drudge had not worked so hard to tear him down. Talk about disrespecting the role of The President. Conservatives are the worst when it comes to that. Drudge, Rush, Coulter … all paid conservative schills with no respect for anything other than the party they are paid to support.

Drudge only writes a few news flashes. His site is essentially a nexus of links to headlines around the world.
So he’s conservative, what’s the problem? At least he admits his bias; Katie, Matt, Charles, Lou, Brian, et al are liberal but refuse to acknowledge their bias. I’m not crying about it.
A copy was leaked to Drudge by another party, so the blame for breaking the embargo lies with them, not with Matt.
Enough with the childish ad hominem attacks.

All the ‘Old Media’ does is whine, whine, whine. They’ve set themselves up as a bunch of privileged elites, supposedly more intellectual than the little guy. They decide what’s important and what we should know. If we’re lucky, they’ll share THEIR OPINION of what they think we should know (never you mind that little thing called truth). The airwaves belong to the people — that is all citizens, not just a few stuffed shirts who think they’re above everyone else. Good for Drudge for sticking it to the ‘Old Media’. No one listens to them anymore anyway — unless they need a good laugh.

WHAT? I thought only the New York Times was allowed to leak Classified information with impunity! But they have to…all of their other stories are made up by their own writers or come from the AP!

The reason why they release the speech early is so that the newspaper reporters can write the article with enough time to send it to their editor who sends it to layout who sets up the presses so that they can start running it by about 12:30am on the east coast. Any smart media relations department would do the same thing given the WH’s situation. If the speech was given at 9am instead of 9pm, they probably wouldn’t release the text early.

Why do you bother comparing Drudge to a “journalist”? He doesn’t write stories, he posts links to stories published in a wide variety of news sources. He doesn’t write (usually), he ferrets out stories a lot of us would never otherwise see.

Just a bit ago Drudge was being blasted as a schill for the left. All I know is I get the latest first from his site. As a journalist- I never heard a claim to this entitalment.

Drudge is the man. No BS with him.Best Web site for news.I check probably 5 time a day.

Every news station, TV and radio, had someone who had read the speech telling you what it said, what you will hear, etc, Drudge simply cut the BS. They are dancing around the embargo, pretending to honor it. In truth, they are all P-O’d because he did it first!

More sour grapes from the increasingly marginalized “mainstream” media. ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT whining about Drudge again? What else is new? It’s called jealousy.
The majority of the media today–ABC chief among them–only consider as “news” those stories that conform to a liberal ideology. The days when three nets and a couple of major newspapers controled what the people saw/heard/knew are gone…
…Good riddance.

I agree w/ chuckles. Funny that I found this article on Drudge Report. Can someone tell me why the speech should be available ahead of time anyway?

I just wished Drudgy boy would lose the 1950-style gum shoe bit. Very immature. And this childish action just bolsters his immaturity. Self appointed journalism go awry.

The WhiteHouse shouldn’t give advance copies out….to anyone! What’s the point of his giving the speech if people can read it in advance? And if there is an embargo on it, then why give it out in the first place?

Dave:
Do not go suppressing the media! Censorship Be Damned!
CAS

RJP3–no wrong doing? Then why did Clinton lose his law license?

Regardless of those that deconstruct the purpose of the DrudgeReport, Matt Drudge is carrying on in the tradition of Woodward & Bernstein, just not at a major news agency. He is providing a platform for whistleblowers to expose the truth. Within that forum one should expect some UFO stories, some tawdry sex-scandal stories, etc. For those partisan-eye-glasses folks who think Drudge is right-wing or left-wing, note that whenever a scandal in the White House is breaking, he covers it. Clinton got his, Bush gets his, as do their minions and compatriots. That would suggest he is less partisan in his postings than one might accuse.

Hey Rhonda Schwartz, slow news day? You guys hate this guy, why do you write about him? Ignore him.

Any criticism of Drudge in this case is nothing more than the sore loser mentality of an envious competition. If the antics of the modern-day White House press corps doesn’t disturb and disappoint people, particularly with actors like that egocentric adolescent flyboy David Gregory of NBC News, who with his intoxicated ramblings on Don Imus’ program and his self-absorbed theatrics and desperate need to “be” the news, then something this tame and irrelevant shouldn’t even raise an eyebrow! For shame!

Once a month, I take three bags of unopened Atlanta Journal Newspapers to the curb. On Sunday I read Overboard, and Dilbert. Wife reads the garbage they stick in it. For all news, 8 or 10 times a day, my choice is the slimy, unprofessional, non-respected, non-main stream, DrudgeReport. Like my favorite restaurant, it may not be Main Street, but it has the best of what I want.

Addicted to Drudge.

How can you idiots say Drudge is a right wing hack. All he does is link up stories that nobody would ever have found anyway but are interesting and sometimes relevant.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Drudge shouldn’t have violated the rules. Why give the Drive-By Media the satisfaction of bringing him (Drudge) down to their level? The solution now is to screw the embargo and delay providing ANYBODY advance notice! Liberal or conservative, they’ve proven they don’t give a damn about honesty or integrity.

Hey Rhonda,
Whether they care to admit it or not, I’ve noticed a tendency for All of the TV media (FNC included) to let Matt do their homework for them. I have to yawn sometimes when I happen to hear about a story that Matt had linked to weeks or months ago. BTW, will ABC cover the results of a polygraph test of Sandy Berger if that ever happens??

It’s us bloggers that broke the CBC’s embargo on the last canadian elections, with Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters, Sailor Republica at Do or Die, and Charles at LGF all doing the play-by-play.
Drudge just did what the rest of us bloggers have been doing for years, as taught by him.
As for most of the arguments slighting Drudge, y’all just stop being jealous and start realizing that this is news as we know it in today’s age. Your old media standbys are now being re-fitted for MY generation’s use.

There are all kinds of “gentlemen’s agreements” I would respect media for abiding when it comes to declining to print a story. This is not one of them. I kind of liked it when the media declined to report that a President was having a tryst because it was not newsworthy and was a personal matter. Those days are long gone. It’s too bad. Anything for a bigger market share, irrespective of value. Picture of the President taking a crap . . . a rush to the presses. At least the State of the Union message has value.
No fault of Drudge’s or those who chose not to print in advance.

There’s a lot of feedback here regarding Matt Drudge’s website. Funny thing is, I wouldn’t have ever seen or heard about this if Matt hadn’t linked the ABC article. Fact is, if Matt doesn’t have a link to it(whatever it is), it’s probably not newsworthy. (BTW:Is this article considered newsworthy;Oh yeah, it is because it’s on a “reputable”(read:not Drudge) website.) Think of all the energy people spent responding to this article. I wonder if it was Rhonda Schwartz or Ann Compton that sent Matt a copy? Look at the mileage this article has gotten since Matt linked it? So was it Ann or Rhonda that was keeping up with current events in the world by monitoring Drudge before the President delivered the speech?

I think Matt Drudge is the man, all he does is post the links to articles, unless he gets a scoop then he writes the story himself. So many employees of the government turn to drudgereport for open source because he’ll post a link to anything. People want to accuse him of being a neo-conservative puppet, explain why he links to al Jazeera, al Arabiya, NYT, the Post and other “radical” organizations…at least Matt isn’t putting my life in danger…for example, when POTUS travelled to Baghdad for Thanksgiving in ’03, Matt had the scoop before anyone else knew and POTUS was airborne…did he post it? Nope…get over it kool-aid drinkers!

There’s a lot of news that politicians would embargo indefinitely if they could. Controversial pictures coming out of Iraq are tightly managed anyway. This administration has mastered the art of information control and spin. Drudge’s tactics are reassuring evidence that the administration’s grip on the flow of information is not absolute.

I don’t see a good reason for the White House or any news agency to receive advance copies of speeches.
As a consumer of news, I think I can wait for the kind of analysis the typical “journalist” manages to produce given the advance copy.
For that matter, you could give the typical media-type a week to come up with something to say about it and you’d still get nothing but tripe.

That “private sex life” of an American President (read Clinton) was conducted in the Oval Office or the West Wing of the White House. The last time I checked that was not a private place. It is the Office of the President. When was the last time you could have oral sex in your office with a subordinate and not be fired??? Do you really think it is lawful conduct??? Can we just get past the Clinton years and focus on the future??? I linked to this story from Drudge. I wonder how many of you did also??

He has and is doing a service to the Internet’s News junkies. Who else reported ANYTHING on the Global Warming story with meteorologists and climate specialists arguing about who is right or wrong or needs to be decertified? How many of you spend your time on the EPW Senate Web Site hmmm? He is the tipoff guy because those who read him send him those tips/links. Funniest thing was watching a national anchor “talent” read the news while those minions in the back were surfing Drudge for the next day’s stories. That is a priceless moment. Funny but I never knew HTML links to be conservative or liberal. Guess it’s time to repaint the Batcave again as this reality stuff is starting to get old.

All of these posts came in from the link at the Drudge.
Point made
Drudge still rocks!

You all argue as to whether or not Drudge is really a journalist, but what have any of you ever done? He’s probably accomplished more as a member of the press then any of you ever will(he broke the Monica Lewinsky scandel). If you don’t like him then don’t read him and go somewhere else for your news, simple as that.

So Drudge is a journalistic folk hero for pulling this silly stunt? “Hey look at me, I’m posting the president’s speech that he’s going to tell us anyway, live in less than an hour!” Come on, this guy either has the mentality of a mischievous 5th grader, or just realizes what suckers we mortals be.

Clearly this was caused by Global Warming.

Drudge has been my homepage for 9 years now. Matt Drudge is THE MAN!

What is all the fuss about? Drudge realeasing a copy of a 45-minute, quite frankly, dull speech is not such a big deal. Anti-Drudgers – lighten up! Go read Huffington!

The drudge report is my main news source.

Game. Set. Match. Drudge!

Regardless of your feelings of Dridge, you HAVE to love his hat.

Personally, I am annoyed that anyone has an advance copy. I’m sick of hearing all over the news days in advance about what the President is going to say. Just let him say it! Let us all be surprised!

Why do the libs hate Drudge so much? Because he links to stories they don’t want me to read? That’s rather communistic, isn’t it???

I once passed Matt Drudge an “anonymous tip” regarding something I witnessed first hand at a Tom DeLay townhall meeting in his district and somehow that information found its way back to DeLay, Inc.
How do I know?
I went to school with one of his “political fixers” and that person showed up right after that to deal me grief!
Until then I was a Drudge fan, now I know he is a “stealth waterboy” for right wing zealots like DeLay!

I love to listen to Drudge every Sunday night on WJR-760,The Great Voice of the Great Lakes. It is very funny and a great big yawn to listen to any newscast or read any paper/magazine, or watch msm. It is all old news to me because I have read it all on Drudge. All my children come to me for all current event questions because they know as soon as dad goes to work to fight fires, mom’s drinking coffee and reading Matt. Matt puts the President down when he disagrees with him. He is not a Kool-aid drinker. Personally, I grew up trusting everything on the news all my life. Cronkite, Rather, Huntley, Brinkley, Wallace, Brokaw, Jennings. It turns out that that they are actually liars. They dare posers, players. I woke up when I was about 30. I realized that the msm think that we really are stupid. Go ahead and keep underestimating us. Matt has great bumper music. But the person I miss is John Batchelor. Anyone know when he is coming back? Let’s see, Matt will know. Viva la Drudge.

Funny. Since the speech was all over the smart blogs well before being posted on Drudge, I’d have to assume that Drudge’s secret source is, duh, a blog.

Drudge be da man!!!

Drudge is a clearinghouse of links. Molly Ivins is linked there for pete’s sake. He’s just providing unfettered access, as clearinghouses are supposed to do. “Refining” the news, as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and others do reduces the “news” to editorials. Your old self-righteousness is showing.

Drudge just links to stuff. That’s not journalism. After someone leaked the Lewinsky story to him, he remained in the GOP pocket and gets their talking points every morning, along with the guys at Fox and Limbaugh. It’s not journalism when you don’t leave your living room and you just run what’s handed to you under a red flashing light graphic.

Let Me see, Woodward and Berstein were heroes in 1974 but Drudge is a stooge for the right wing in 2007. OK now I get it. By the way, haven’t You noticed that most of what is on the Drudge site are links to other news sites LIKE ABC and others! How can You point to an agenda when other main stream news sources are where Drudge users are directed?

Rick Moran you may be
right –
Drudge was scooped, but…
we came here because
we TRUST Drudge.
One-liner and a key link.
No warning of out-on-location now.
Must have a staff to help do work.
Anticipation is gone;
immediate new info instead. XP’ian

I think things would be a lot more interesting if the speech was NOT released beforehand… you would actually need to listen to the president speak, and newscasters could give an honest reaction to the speech in the minutes following it’s conclusion.

The MSM just don’t get it. A guy in his apartment with a computer and modem stands news reporting on it’s head. I go to Drudge before anyone else to see what is happening.

The basic content of the speech had been reported for weeks… word for word pre-info. Does it take anything away from the speech? I don’t think so. I love the defenses of Clinton. If a Republican had abused his position (say Mark Foley) to send e-mails to someone in the chain of command they would just simply ignore this “private” life. If, say a speaker of the house has an affair (say Newt), this is just private and we shouldn’t mention it at all. I have no problem expecting Republicans to have morals and ethics. I also have no problem expecting it from Democrats, but rarely see it. Clinton was an abuser of power (from Day 1 as Arkansas govenor to the White House. Want to talk about truth or integrity from the White House — don’t mention Clinton as an example. He only happened to be from your party so you make excuses for him and can’t understand or see Republicans defending their candidate. Just open both eyes.

WOW.. what a Maverick. Gee whats next for this guy, running with scissors? petting a strange dog?
All this has done is guarantee that Matt no longer is given a copy of the state of the union.
And stop calling him a journalist, he is a blogger with a lot of hits. Nothing more.

I only read Drudge report and have given up on the t.v. news media- the people they bring on board to give comment sicken me! william t.

Drudge is … blah, blah, blah, blah — sheesh!
Drudge is where Ann Compton and lots of other Americans get the news first and unedited.
And, that, America, is a good thing!

If it’s not on DrugeReport, it’s not worthy of attention.
Addicted to DrugeReport.com!!
Rock on Matt!

For those misguided leftist who have the audacity to label Matt Drudge as right wing, your own thick-lensed liberal glasses betray your ability to see that he posts ‘gotchas’ from both sides of the aisle. Now just because the total sum of the articles that make liberals look like fools is far greater than those that make conservatives look like fools, only stands to illuminate the fact that liberals are bigger fools than conservatives. On a side note, do you think all the communists festering in this country dissapeared after the fall of the Soviet Union? Indeed not, they became the multiculturalists (all cultures are created equal-Not!), race hustlers (university admission boards, Mike Nifong, Jesse etc.), and Hollywood are all communists under a different banner now that communism is defunct.

I like to get my news from Matt first then watch the driveby media spin and slant the same story to match their liberal bias.always fun to watch.

Take Drudge with a grain of salt…I remember the headline Pope Dead – 3 days before he actually died. In Journalism it is more important to be correct than to be first!

This piece is just silly. Drudge wasn’t the first person to publish the text as prepared for delivery online. ThinkProgress had it ten minutes earlier- Drudge just copied it from them.

Well I guess Drudge won’t get to fly on Air Force One with the rest of the kiss up media that sold us out by not reporting the truth about Bush’s lies before the Iraq War. ABC has no more credibility than any other media source. The big media boys would rather have free lunches at the White House, trips on Air Force One, “Scoops” with Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice, than do the hard work of journalists and do research and ask tough questions. You guys are a bunch of stenographers!

People are still paying attention to Drudge? The guy who had such sympathy for poor Mark Foley, getting enticed by all those beastly teenage pages. I’m shocked (shocked!) that such a person would be so professionally unethical as to break a press embargo.

Hey, just look at the number of hits the Drudge report gets in a month – and then look at how the newspapers and the network news is in decline -sorry to all of you lefties – that says it all !!