Rove, the Internet, Jason L., bloggers, and the rumor mill (article)

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http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114774060320053665-yW4EYDFzYadmGaqpnXr0ZlqmEF0_20070515.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Rove's Camp Takes Center of Web Storm

Bloggers Underscore How Net's Reporting Dynamics Provide Grist for the Rumor Mill

By ANNE MARIE SQUEO
May 16, 2006; Page A4

On Saturday night, attorney Robert Luskin was trying to barbecue at his Washington home when the phone started ringing nonstop. A story posted on an Internet site Truthout.org reported that his client, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, had been indicted.

Mr. Luskin says he issued an explicit denial to anyone who contacted him. But the story set off a fire storm, with reporters from newspapers, television and elsewhere seeking to check its veracity, and Web log writers seeking comment.

With more people turning to the Internet for news, bloggers have blurred the lines with traditional media and changed both the dynamics of the reporting process and how political rumors swirl.


Mr. Rove is the subject of an investigation by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into whether the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative was illegally leaked by Bush administration officials. Mr. Rove has testified before the grand jury in the case five times, most recently last month.

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1. umm.. it is a rumor they imply: "how political rumors swirl."

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2. BTW--it is a free article.

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3. also talkes of the dynamics of the internet and bloggers.

....Mainstream news organizations say bloggers can say something is going to happen every day for months and then claim to be ahead of the pack when it does -- or forget about it when it doesn't. Bloggers complain that traditional reporters don't credit them for scoops when they are proved right.

"It's not that this is a completely new dynamic," says Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at George Washington University, who says the tabloid press used to be this type of incubator. But the Internet makes blogs "much more ubiquitous and instantaneous."

While libel law is the same for any written material -- Internet, newspaper or otherwise -- that damages someone's reputation, there is less incentive to sue Web upstarts and scant case law on the matter. The one major case was filed by former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal against Mr. Drudge, publisher of the Drudge Report online, after a report that Mr. Blumenthal had a history of spousal abuse. The case was settled years later, with Mr. Blumenthal covering $2,500 of Mr. Drudge's expenses.

Mr. Luskin, who has handled other high-profile cases, says blogs have made cases like the CIA leak case "an order of magnitude uglier and more personal."

--Jeanne Cummings contributed to this article.

Write to Anne Marie Squeo at [e-mail]