-Caveat Lector-
I WILL NOT BE CENSORED!
The Going Gets Tough, and Matt Drudge
Gets Going
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 15, 1999; Page C01
Matt Drudge walked off his Fox News Channel show
Saturday, charging
that network executives were censoring him because
they refused to let
him show a picture of a fetus.
"I can't sit there and edit what I'm going to say,"
the Internet columnist said.
"I got really upset. . . . I have to wonder whether
their motto of 'we report,
you decide' isn't just some Madison Avenue slogan."
The showdown came hours before air time when John
Moody, Fox's vice
president for news, told Drudge he could not show a
National Enquirer
photo of a 21-week-old fetus. Drudge, an ardent
opponent of abortion,
wanted to brandish the picture of a tiny hand reaching
out from the womb
to dramatize a baby's development at that stage. But
Moody decided that
would be misleading because the tabloid photo dealt
not with abortion but
with an emergency operation on the fetus for spina
bifida.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 15, 1999; Page C01
Matt Drudge walked off his Fox News Channel show
Saturday, charging
that network executives were censoring him because
they refused to let
him show a picture of a fetus.
"I can't sit there and edit what I'm going to say,"
the Internet columnist said.
"I got really upset. . . . I have to wonder whether
their motto of 'we report,
you decide' isn't just some Madison Avenue slogan."
The showdown came hours before air time when John
Moody, Fox's vice
president for news, told Drudge he could not show a
National Enquirer
photo of a 21-week-old fetus. Drudge, an ardent
opponent of abortion,
wanted to brandish the picture of a tiny hand reaching
out from the womb
to dramatize a baby's development at that stage. But
Moody decided that
would be misleading because the tabloid photo dealt
not with abortion but
with an emergency operation on the fetus for spina
bifida.
"It was a picture of one surgical procedure and Drudge
was talking about
another, and we thought that was a misrepresentation,"
Fox spokesman
Brian Lewis said yesterday. "Matt's entitled to his
opinion. It was an
editorial decision. We weren't going to force him to
do the show." Fox
News President Roger Ailes supported the decision,
Lewis said.
In some ways the clash may have been inevitable,
pitting a 31-year-old
iconoclast who plies his trade on the freewheeling Net
against a network
that, while it takes more chances than its rivals,
tries to uphold a set of
news standards. Drudge, who is being sued for libel by
White House aide
Sidney Blumenthal, has made his share of mistakes.
Still, he said of the
dispute, "I'm trying to stand on principle."
By contrast, Drudge says, ABC, which syndicates his
radio program, has
not tried to interfere with his opinions. He would not
say whether he
intends to fulfill the remaining year on his Fox
contract. "There are deep
creative differences," he said from Los Angeles.
Drudge says he has gotten
more than 500 e-mails when Fox reran another show in
his time slot.
Perhaps most remarkable, given Drudge's conservative
ideology, is his
charge that Rupert Murdoch's network appears to have
looser standards
for material critical of President Clinton. He noted
that Fox raised no
objection during the Monica Lewinsky scandal when he
broke the story
about the president's use of a cigar, and that
Gennifer Flowers spoke on
the network about a supposed list of people associated
with Clinton who
had died or been killed.
"I guess I can go on and talk about Lewinsky's dirty
dress," Drudge said.
In recent weeks Drudge asked Ailes to let him out of
his contract, citing
both past friction and fatigue with taping the weekly
program, but decided
against quitting. In an incident several months ago,
Drudge said, he was
blocked from showing a picture of a New York Times
reporter shaking
Clinton's hand at a state dinner after a story by
another Times reporter had
criticized the White House over alleged Chinese
espionage. Drudge says
the network told him that would be in bad taste.
"I'm not going to be swayed if I can't stand for what
I feel is right," he said.
"I'll just go to a medium where I can."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/15/021r-111599-idx.html
Bard
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