The Internet made Matt Drudge into what he is today: a
notorious and popular attack journalist with a following of
thousands. After a series of bizarre events last night,
though, a good portion of the Internet may want to break
him.
Drudge left a large audience of Art Bell followers dangling from a hook last
night after stirring up a breeze of innuendo regarding the popular talk show
host all during the previous day. In one of his patented "XXXXXX EXTRAS
XXXXXX," Drudge baldly reported that Bell would come clean last night on his
"Coast to Coast" radio show as to the reasons behind his numerous disappearing
acts of recent vintage, and broadly hinted that AIDS played a part in Bell's
frequently discussed personal problems, either with Art himself or someone in
his family.
But about the same time the radio show started, Drudge took the earlier report
off his site and replaced it with a message that informed readers that Bell
would not discuss the issue after all, and would leave it to "the press and
others" to do the finding out. These informed others did not include Drudge,
as became apparent when Bell fans took up on Drudge's invitation to meet on the
Undernet IRC #artbell channel to discuss the situation.
For a couple of online hours Drudge sparred with Bell fans seeking
clarification, consistently refusing to elaborate on his earlier report, still
dropping hints here and there, but mostly responding in breezy ALL CAPS
harangues to detractors who questioned Drudge's journalistic credibility. That
the chat was confusing and somewhat pointless was a given, considering the
nature of IRC and the fact that the channel was bursting to the seams with
dozens of users, all tossing unmoderated question upon question onto the hapless
muckraker, who responded with a series of meek defensive swats until the
bulk of his opponents grew bored with their captive prey and wandered off to
download pornography somewhere else.
Meanwhile, Bell's people were busy uploading the contents of his $60 million
lawsuit against "cyberstalkers" David John Oates and Robert A.M. Stephens to
Bell's website (see our earlier report), while Bell himself muttered darkly
about character defamation by bad people on the Internet on his radio show, but
refused to elaborate on said "personal problems" as promised by Drudge.
This turn of events has left many observers wondering exactly what sort of
professional relationship Drudge has with Bell at this point, and whether or
not the talkmeister is using Drudge's star clout as fodder and publicity point
man for his big lawsuit against the two rival talkers.
