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FROM DRUDGE MANIFESTO By Matt Drudge and Julia Phillips December 23, 1999 Hollywood, CA [BOOT UP] This is the most exciting moment in the history of News. Anyone from anywhere can cover anything. And send it out to everyone. Reports on last hour's 8.7-mag. quake in The Kodiak Islands of Alaska, tomorrow's firing of ConnieChung from THECBSEVENINGNEWS, or next week's NEWSWEEK’s spiking of a piece on past Presidential predilection for penile pumping by plump, politically-placed, post-pubescent White House Pretties can be dispatched faster than an incoming inter-continential blistered nuke. Fired from Pakistan, compliments of U.S. tech stolen by China, sold to Iran, transferred from Russia on Taiwanese hardware processed by Israeli software. Hey, it’s The Zeroes. Just hit the ENTER button. I have. And lived to sell the tale. If I'm not interesting, the world's not interesting. If the DRUDGE REPORT is boring, the world is boring. It’s Zero, Babies. And if I’m boring, you’re boring. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a 12-month year, 10 years a decade, 10 decades a century and 10 centuries a millennium, as far as a chip can see, wire services from all over the world move raw data…all over the world! I can access, edit, headline and…link to it all! Throw it up on a website and wait for you to come. I’ve reported when, how, and what I’ve wanted. My only limitations have been those I’ve created. There’s been no editor, no lawyer, no judge, no president to tell me I can’t. And there never will be. Technology has finally caught up with individual liberty. On the boulevards, we call it “freedom of the brain”. In this post-satellite dish era - when individuals can broadcast their wetdreams with neither a license nor a handbook of regulations issued by Government - The Elites, fearing loss of power, see chaos and anarchy. I see only sunshine. The world is interesting, I’m interesting, you’re interesting. It all starts with the wires. It all ends with the wires. Information being power and all. A random Associated Press NewsAlert© begets CNNBreakingNews© begets Reuters© begets Rush Limbaugh©. If the Alert™ becomes A Story after 157 minutes, it’ll beget 20/20DatelineEntertainmentTonight60Minutes®. If it lasts 3¼ days, it’ll run above the fold in TheNewYorkTimes® and below in TheNationalEnquirer™. Give it two weeks and someone at the New Yorker© will pound out a re-write, win a Pulitzer©. A month, and ScottRudinSherryLansingHarveyWeinstein(sm) options it for PaltrowDamonMingella® or P.T. Anderson©, thinking Oscar© just as David E. Kelley©, demanding Emmy, races a secret script for a series starring SomeoneSuperSkinny[PatentPending]. Still bouncing in six months? Billboard© pronounces SonyMottolaLaurynHill’s© rap will wrap up Grammy®. A year in, PrNewswire© reports DonDeLillo’s© handed in his first 1000 pages on a National Book Award Winner® that began…with the stray AP NewsAlert© a thousand cycles ago. Welcome to the Zeroes, pal. You’ll get it where you want it. The buffet’s bigger than at WynnBellagio©.<<<<< I like to start the meal with the XINHUA wire from China mixed with KYODO from Japan. A soupcon of AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE stirred with ITAR-TASS from Moscow. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC wire for curry and the JERUSELUM POST for matzo. NORTH KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY when it’s cold. UK’s PRESSASSOCIATION when it’s wet. AdAgeDeadlineE!ChannelBskyBBBCFoxNews if I’m lonely. DeutschePresse-AgenturMSNBCHollywoodReporter when I’m blue. It’s always waiting for you. Anywhere you want it. You can get it. For the first time in the history of communication, you don’t have to live in a corporate “newsroom” for access to instant information. With a modem, a phone jack, and an inexpensive computer, your newsroom can be your living room, your bedroom… your bathroom, if you’re so inclined. You can take on the Big Boys between flushes. You can beat CNN to the announcement of Princess Diana’s death by eight minutes, as I once did, thanks to an e-tip from a reporter on the scene. As They debate, edit, re-write, fix ‘n’ figure what the real slant is, you’ve reported it and graduated it. Dished it, dismissed it and moved it. * * * * * Early July - Late 90’s - Noon Washington, DC “Click your heels three times and I’ll get you there,” Mark Halperin of ABC News says confidently over the phone in my upgraded suite at the toney Mayflower Hotel. “What’s your social security number? We’ll run it through. Be at the gate at 1:30.” Oooh…this is exciting! I ASKJEEVES.com how to mix a Cosmopolitan, stirred not shaken, and break open the wet bar. I’m not a drinker, but I may as well spend the $12.95 before Sidney and Joe get their hands on it. Social security number for entre to the White House? For the daily press briefing? Didn’t the Feds promise that social security numbers would never be used for ID? Maybe I should ask Mike McCurry about that. Halperin and his ABC pal, Josh Gerstein, cornered me at a dinner a couple of weeks ago, offering an invite to the White House. “Maybe a presidential press conference. Do you have a wireless remote? Could you file during the press conference? Beat Wolf Blitzer?” the intrigued Halperin stroked. “I’ve filed from nearly everywhere else.” “How?” “Anywhere there’s a phone connection. You have no idea how many Drudge Reports I’ve generated from airport payphones filling the time between delays. Last week, I teased the big Gerth story in the Times three hours before they published it - live from Houston.” “Wow” It dawns on me I have a large DC cult following, especially the electronic media types. Halperin, a close-personal-friend of George Stephanopolous (sans the Acropolis) thinks he’ll make history with me on location at 1600 Penn. What can I say? This is a guy whose office is lined with tabloid headlines starring Dick Morris. I grab a quick anxiety-shower, don my summer costume: white shirt by Sears, black tie by Gap, tan suit by Brooks, walkman by Sony, homemade Radiohead travel-tape by Drudge. And my beloved black Florsheim’s, which have transported me up Hollywood boulevards, down Sin City’s Fremont, across Empire’s 34th, over to State-Street-that-great-street, and back to my home town, the Capital, which is becoming smaller with each visit. Social Security card at the ready, I strut down Connecticut Avenue. The Bank thermometer reads 97-degrees. It’s been this way for days. Radiohead’s Fitter Happier vibrates through my radio head. “Getting on better with your associate employee/contemporaries…” The late-90’s gem is heavily rotated on my tape. The Radiohead greats. I’ve studied every one and lived a few. Exit Song. Karma Police. Fake Plastic Trees. Creep. I pass Farragut Square, wave at the Old Grey Lady on Eye Street, sniff the Bombay Club where DOPOTUS Chelsea often veggie-curry platters. Through Lafayette Park over to 17th. I spot Wolf Blitzer simultaneously with some passing fans who actually lean out of their car to scream: “It’s Wolf Blitzer!” The “senior of the senior” White House correspondents (as he once described himself to USA Today) waves at them happily. I spot a protestor carrying a sign that reads: Treason is the Reason. I spot the West Gate. Secret Service spot me. Two blasé agents wave me through with nary a glance. I’m certainly not as pretty as Eleanor Mondale, but I am the first internet reporter granted access to the hallowed halls of eop.gov. My heart races when I reach the other side of the fence. I’m in! I’m already soaked through but I walk up the driveway at a brisk aerobic pace, pass Rita Braver - to whom I once priority-overnighted a 48 Hours mug and a Bold and Beautiful teeshirt - on my way into the press room. I nearly collide with Helen Thomas, UPI Wire Queen, dressed in red from head to toe. I look around. I’m surrounded by the stars of The White House Press Corps, faces I know from years of tracking C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. I’m pretty sure nobody recognizes me. A bank of cameras line the back of the room, maybe two dozen rows of movie-theater seats fill the rest. It’s smaller than I thought. I stand off to the side in back, crunched against broadcast paraphernalia, which affords me a low profile, a full view of the room, and the players therin. “Looks like we’ve got a holiday crowd here,” Mike McCurry starts. “I like that. Early departure. I’m in favor of it. The problem is, I’m going to run into all of [you] on I-95 going up to the Jersey shore this afternoon.” The assemblage is plotting its Fourth of July getaway. But first, a little attention to the plight of the extremely poor. Question #1: “What’s the big news on welfare reform?” Helen’s in the front row. Rita’s in the fifth. Blitzer, the most “senior of the senior” is in the sixth next to Gerstein, who acknowledges me with a small wink. Terry Hunt from the AP, probably another I-95er, checks his watch every two seconds. A Reuters dude winds his. In the middle of the room, prominently displayed, a middle-aged woman even I can’t ID. She holds up her compact mirror, smears on purple lipstick. Then powder. Now blush! She appears completely oblivious to her surroundings. Follow-up: “Does the president’s plan cover all low-income working families, Mike?” The woman flosses her teeth. Tweezes and reaches for a Q-tip. Our eyes and ears on the Executive Branch. I check around the room. Nobody in the overlit scene is as preoccupied as I am with this broad’s odd behavior, never mind her mental health. Isn’t this room only for press? Aren’t the people here the chosen few, the ones we rely on for information? Keepers of The Fourth Estate? How many reporters would kill to get into this room? Have questions for the White House but no access? Who aren’t issued credentials? Whose social security numbers ain’t clean enough. Who don’t consider this pressroom an air-conditioned pitstop en route to Rehoboth. Some center of power! Some represention of the people. Next question: “The agreement that Ukraine is going to sign, will that give them a relationship with NATO equal to that of Russia?” I try to pay attention to his answer but the mystery woman puts her compact in her purse and extracts manicure/pedicure apparatus. She commences to file the nails on her right hand. “The structure of that arrangement is very similar to the one that was developed with the Russian Federation…” McCurry drones, and I can’t help myself I just have to check out Ms Rehoboth… Omigod! She’s moved to her feet! Nobody else notices, which only makes me more obsessed. Question: “Is the president meeting with Secretary General Solana on Monday?” Ms. R. inserts turqoise styrofoam separators between the toes of her left foot, and commences VanGogh-ing that same horrible puce-purple. I laugh out loud and must exit the brief-room for a brief time-out. I wander into the rundown pressroom down the hall, the one that isn’t televised. Fading carpet. Worn-out keyboards. I’m alone with the machines. I search for and locate the UPI cubbyhole. It all starts with the wires. I search for and locate Helen Thomas’s terminal. It all ends with the wires. I take a seat. I take a peek. Information being power and all. Surprisingly, Helen’s computer looks like an old commodore-style. Helen’s Backstairs at the White House. Helen’s Washington Windows. I type in a header: “Today, Matt Drudge was bestowed an Honorary Doctorate at the Columbia School of Journalism for his groundbreaking internet reporting.” For a moment I consider hitting the Enter button, but I can hear from down the hall that McCurry’s winding down. I backspace to Prompt. What waaaas I thinking? I trot back in. Yes! I’ve got a question. “Mike,” I begin without identifying myself, “in recent weeks Ken Starr has been shopping a book proposal with major publishing houses in New York.” McCurry: “Oh, do tell.” Laughter. “It’s titled ‘Mike McCurry,’” Ms. Fingers&Toes quips, blithely blowing on her nails. Hands, not feet. Mmmmm, so she is paying attention. Multitasking. More laughter. “It’s a book proposal,” I continue, “not relating to Whitewater…” “Aaaagh,” McCurry says. “The perception in New York is that he’s cashing in on his celebrity, and I understand the money may be moving upwards. Would you have any comment at this point?” “Naaagh.” McCurry jabs, fixing me with the same cold stare as Annette Bening did at Spago - not to mention Peter Gallagher, working on her back in a raw sex scene. [American Beauty]. Braver darts from her chair, nearly ripping her hose, and heads hurriedly for the back. UPI’s Helen T rushes me. Details. Gimme details. I introduce myself. “Hello, Helen, I’m Matt Drudge. I write a column on the - “ “I know who you are. Tell me more…” “All I know, Helen, is Starr’s typed up some sort of proposal for a book about constitutional law.” “Very good,” she says, and smiles benignly. . We travel toward her terminal together and I notice for the first time the sorry state of the heavily-stained, smelly hallway carpet. Memo to Hillary: Buy Nature’s Miracle. “I’m going to file a story on this book proposal,” Helen says. “Catcha later.” “Later?” “3:30. You know, the Vet-Event in the East Room.” No I don’t know. But I’m prepared to go with the flow. I sidle over to Mr. AP NewsAlert himself, Terence Hunt. “Mr. Hunt, I’m Matt Drudge.” “I know…” “I love your work.” “I check your webpage sometimes,” he smiles. I’m face to face with the most powerful computer in the infouniverse, the AP Machine at eop.gov. This machine starts the cycles. All things White House begin here. The copy I receive in my built-by-radioshack Hollywood newsroom is written here. By this man. In this cubbyhole. When he hits the ENTER button hundreds of outlets feel it. Hundreds aren’t thousands and thousands aren’t millions and millions aren’t what they used to be. But still. It all starts with the wires. “When you issue a news alert, how long does it take to get going? What’s the ETA on the A-Wire?” “Pretty fast.” “Can you go out live?” I ask. “If, say, something really huge happened?” “I think I figured out a way. I’d have a few minutes before anybody at the home office would notice. I’ve thought a lot about what I’m going to write the day I decide to leave,” he jokes. It all ends with the wires. In the CBS stall Rita Braver whispers urgently into her phone, “I don’t know what it’s about.” I creep up behind her, convinced she’s discussing my flash with her husband Bob Barnett, book agent and lawyer to Clinton, Hillary Rodham, Woodward, Bob, and Couric, Boring. Among Others. “Matt Drudge is here. Hold on a second.” She knows who I am? Why does that not make me feel good. “I know who you’re talking to, Rita,” I say. “Oh no no no no. No. Oh no. No, it’s not…” Busted. Reporters who marry lawyers who work for clients who have sex with presidents, among others… Gerstein pulls me into the ABC stall next door. “Worried I’m gonna connect the dots?” I ask. “I just wanted to introduce you to Anne Compton.” “Are you repped by Bob Barnett? Perchance?” They check their watches, avoiding my eyes. “Time for the Vet-Event!” Anne says merrily and we link arms. “Off to see the wizard,” I sing and they pretend to laugh. ** 3:29 pm ET East Room, The White House The room is jammed and stuffy. No airconditioning could keep up with this heatwave. A band plays Grand Old Flag and other patriotic ditties, but I can’t get Radiohead’s Fitter Happier out of my skull. Lead singer Thom York has said the song is the most escapist cut on his OK Computer CD. “We put the lyrics in the computer with Talk program - just standard software. The text is now spoken by an emotionless computer voice. I see it as the ultimate disassociation with the lyrics and [my] responsibility for them.” The band winds down, the multitude quiets as Clinton/Gore makes its entrance. Hard to say about the Prez, but the Vice-Prez is in full makeup, TV ready. I one-eighty this way and that, and indeed the broadcast paraphernalia is in full red light mode. The Prez dutifully recites what feels like his computer-generated lyrics: “Mr. Vice President, Commander Frank, Colonel Harmon, Secretary Albright, Secretary Cohen, Ambassador Richardson, Mr. Berger, General Shalikashvili, General Ralston, and Members of the Joint Chiefs, to the distinguished veterans and citizens…tomorrow we will commemorate Independence Day and The Declaration of Independence…” But I hear: “Fitter happier and more productive. “A pig in a cage on antibiotics.” I pace the back of the room, skirting the edge of the crowd and find a corner window offering a great view of 16th Street. As a kid, I used to stand on the other side, looking in. Now, I’m looking out. And up. Oh dear. Cobwebs. Memo to Hill: Buy DustBuster. Another thing. These drapes clash with the art. And by the way, I don’t think I like it here. Press Conference legend Sarah McClendon, wheelchair-bound, snoozes, snoring. Her shirt has slipped off her shoulder and down her arm, revealing one fleshtone brastrap. Clinton gives good chin. Alison Mitchell of The New York Times gives me bad look. I wonder how many times a day she checks my page. “We have a lot to celebrate on this July 4th. We are at peace. We are more prosperous than we have been in a generation, our liberty more secure than ever…” To my left, Wolf Blitzer. I catch his eye and he pretends not to see. That’s okay, you old kibitzer, you’re only on TV. To my right, Shipman, Claire, who frowns at me. Glare Claire glare, you had to propose to hubby J. Carney. Behind me, Barnett’s Braver, who’ll never invite me to tea. A lonely computer nerd I may be. But I have credentials, Members of the Academy. I started in the Gifte Shoppe, I’m family. I sold brother Roger Evening Shade sweats, don’t you see. I remind him of this some time later as we, Board an AA plane at LAX en route to IAD, outside our nation’s capitol. A bomb had dropped on DC. A scandal was brewing. Started by me. [Isikoff got scared. Her Name was Lewinsky.] Roger C. wasn’t in the mood to chat, not he. A moment of silence in honor of the veterans. Slumbering Sarah cuts a sleepy fart. It echoes and reverberates. Well-said. Precisely. Couldn’t have put it better myself. <<< |
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