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true or false...



It wasn't tough finding anti-Drudge sentiment. The basic idea is that "news" sources like Drudge are lowing the bar for what's reportable, and making everyone else stoop to keep up. I like how American Politics Journal (http://www.american-politics.com/040398.RusDonaldson.html) sums it up with this: "Sam Donaldson, sleazeball supreme, and Cokie Roberts -- to a lesser extent -- have also joined in the feeding frenzy. The main course? - Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. ... Donaldson is the victim of his own panic, and his own panel. Take a look at the group. Tired, migraine-headache-plagued George Will who sits around 'the table' and pontificates a la Firing Line, only Will doesn't have the brains to match Bill Buckley or the disarming and decisive panache of Mike Kinsley."  

More difficult to find is the contingent that supports this kind of thing. I choose http://www.rotten.com as my example. BUT WAIT... This site is gruesome, and includes things like JFK and Tupac's autopsy photos. So don't go to it if you'll be offended. But, if you scroll down to the last entry of the first section (you won't be offended by anything on the main page), to the "EXTRA Diana image fallout hits media, Media reaction to our publishing of photos" section (again, nothing gruesome there), you'll see how seriously the mainstream media took the site. 

After the Lady Di accident, someone sent to rotten.com a photo of an actual crash. Only it wasn't her crash though it sure looks like it. Anyway, the site was so overloaded with hits that it had to shut down. Among the many messages they received were questions from the mainstream media, asking for copies of it, or interviews about how rotten.com got it.  Numerous outlets including CNET, Reuters, even The New York Times, published stories about it. 

The point of this is that almost everything on rotten.com is stolen, sent anonymously. And, really, who can tell if it's legitimate. And obviously, a photo of the Diana crash would have been stolen too. But rotten.com doesn't care. And it seems that The New York Times didn't care either. Maybe the rotten.com people are full of it, but they say they do this because information should be free, even if it's false; let the users be the judge. Under Tupac's autopsy, it says: "Tabloid offers as high as $100K were turned down for the photo, which we reproduce above. LVMPD was not happy about the photo being leaked, but being property of the people of the United States, it is in the public domain." 

Take care, 
Carlene