Gawker: greatly exaggerated reports, ;

Why Matt Drudge Still Rules (And Where He Goes From Here)

Ryan Tate — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:26:09 EST

Is Matt Drudge completely over in the wake of his ill-advised hyping of pro-McCain propaganda?If you're even bothering to ask the question, the answer is self-evidently "No," it can always be argued. It was thus inevitable that someone — Slate's Jack Shafer, it turns out — would emerge to swat down the greatly exaggerated reports (from Media Matters and so forth) of Drudge's demise as an influential blogger. He works too hard and has drawn too much traffic to go away so easily, Shafer argues:

...12 years after its founding, no greater media punch can be found in a smaller Web package than the Drudge Report, reportedly just a two-person operation. According to comScore Media Metrix, the Drudge Report's number of unique visitors rose 70 percent from September 2007 to September 2008, impressive even in a year that most Web sites covering the campaign have attracted plumper audiences.

Besides, people have been predicting Drudge's demise for nearly a decade, and nothing has come of it, Shafer adds. (Sounds familiar.)

Why did Drudge screw up the last few weeks of the election so badly, and how does he position his site now that the horse that he bet against has won? The internet publisher can safely avoid doing much self-reflection: He'll do well enough for himself remaining, with Fox News, part of the loyal opposition. Several months down the road, when Obama's honeymoon has ended, Drudge's hectoring will sound less tone-deaf and more like an integral part of the media narrative.

In the meantime, he's well-advised to get out of the house a bit more and start handicapping the next election cycle. He needs to be able to read the tea leaves much more closely this time around.

Times Misreports Death — In A Novel

Ryan Tate — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:57:11 EDT

(Disclaimer: Spoilers related to the Philip Roth novel Indignation ahead.) Oct. 2, Philip Roth will jump readers to the end of his new novel Indignation. On WNYC, the writer will explain how, if you read to the end of his book, you find that the narrator Marcus Messner is not, in fact, dead, but merely in the midst of a morphine hallucination of his own death. This contradicts both reviews of the book in the Times, one by Michiko Kakutani, the other in the Sunday Book Review. In so doing, it begs the question: Did those reviewers bother to read the book all the way to the end?

It's possible they did, because the close of Indignation sounds like a complicated affair. Here's what Roth will say on WNYC, via the Observer:

Not until the end do we discover that this is-I think you discover-this is a morphine-induced hallucination and in the morphine revelry that he has he tells his story, and in that morphine revelry he wonders where the hell am I? And he thinks, well I must be dead. And in fact he does die, but he dies after the morphine-induced thought of death comes to him.

So Roth's character dies right after thinking he's dying or dead. So does that mean Kakutani was right when she wrote the book is perhaps the narrator's "last, morphine-fueled memories as he lies dying of fatal wounds?" That depends on whether the narrator dies of fatal wounds. And if two paid Times reviewers can't get the ending straight, we're not about to try.

(WNYC photo via Observer)

Steve Jobs's Obituary, As Run By Bloomberg

Ryan Tate — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:59:32 EDT

The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary today — and inadvertently published it in the process. Some investors were undoubtedly rattled to see, as our tipster did late this afternoon, the Apple CEO's obit cross the wire and then suddenly disappear. Jobs's battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation. The Times weighed in on the matter as recently as last month, when columnist Joe Nocera spoke with the secretive tech executive. But news organizations routinely prepare obituaries in advance, even for the healthy. And if Bloomberg readers had seen the internal story slug, "testjobs," their jitters might have abated. The obit, which we've obtained and reprinted after the jump, is a bit macabre to read but should not scare you out of your Apple shares. (UPDATE: Bloomberg has "retracted" its obituary, and the retraction is also after the jump.) More interesting are the accompanying notes for Bloomberg reporters!

The obituary contains nothing to indicate Bloomberg has new information on Jobs's health, at least in our quick skim.

But the reporting notes do reveal that near the top of Bloomberg's list of people to call in event of his death is Jobs's ex girlfriend Heidi Roizen (quite the Valley switchboard, apparently) and California attorney general and (like Jobs) cranky aging hippie Jerry Brown. Also, Bloomberg doesn't seem to have many people's cell phone numbers.

Retraction:

Story Referencing Apple Was Sent in Error by Bloomberg News

Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) — An incomplete story referencing Apple

Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m.

New York time today. The item was never meant for publication and

has been retracted.

—Editor: Joe Winski, Cesca Antonelli

Steve Jobs obituary:

JOB, STEVE. APPLE FOUNDER, TECH VISIONARY. UPDATED AUGUST 2008

HOLD FOR RELEASE - DO NOT USE - HOLD FOR RELEASE - DO NOT USE

Steve Jobs's birthday: Feb. 24, 1955

BIO UPDATED AS OF 2008, by Connie Guglielmo

APPLE PR CONTACTS: Katie Cotton — -redacted- and Steve Dowling: -redacted- or -redacted-

People to contact for comment:

- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak: -redacted-

- Jon Rubinstein, former head of Apple's iPod division. He's now

chairman at Palm. Contact Lynn Fox in PR.

- Heidi Roizen: venture capitalist who once dated Jobs: -redacted- or -redacted-. Heidi knows a lot of Silicon

Valley insiders and may put us in touch with others, including

A.C. Mike Markkula, the first VC to back Apple.

- Larry Ellison of Oracle (one of his best friends); contact

Deborah Hellinger in Oracle PR. -redacted-, -redacted-

- Jerry Brown (personal friend) and California AG. Try GARETH

LACY at -redacted- IN OAKLAND; -redacted- CELL, -redacted- or press office: -redacted-

- Al Gore: member of Apple's board of directors

- Bill Gates: Microsoft was among the first developers of Mac

software

- Bob Iger at Disney: who bought Pixar from Jobs

- Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and member of Apple's board. Send

note to -redacted- or try David Krane: -redacted- or -redacted-

- Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel Corp. (Apple began using Intel

chips in its Macs in 2006). Contact Tom Beermann: -redacted- or

Bill Calder on -redacted-. Both in Intel PR

- Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Contact Shawn

Dainas in PR: -redacted-

- John Lassiter and Ed Catmull: Pixar-nee-Disney executives. Try

Zenia Mucha, -redacted- or Jonathan Friedland, -redacted-, in

corporate PR at Disney.

- Guy Kawasaki, one of the first Apple evangelists. -redacted- or -redacted-

- Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, who bought an early circuit

board for the game Breakout from Jobs and Wozniak. (pr is being

handled by his daughter, Alisa Bushnell. her cell is: -redacted-; work is -redacted- work/message;-redacted-)

To contact the reporter on this story:

Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at-redacted- or -redacted-

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Cesca Antonelli at -redacted- or -redacted-

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