Trainwreck Spotting

Matt Drudge 's report on an alleged infidelity scandal in the John F. Kerry campaign broke about an hour ago. Fact or fiction, I've been having fun watching the impending trainwreck. Wonkette and Instapundit [11:46 AM] were the first mainstream bloggers (Did I just say that???) to post something about it.

The wonderful thing about the Internet and weblogs are the timestamps. Here's the moment the story broke on Howard Dean's Blog for America:

second and check out DRUDGE! HERE IT COMES!!! Posted by barry in va at February 12, 2004 11:37 AM

Google's news search had just two articles ("Will Press Pounce on Drudge's Kerry Rumor?" and "Media investigating alleged recent infidelity Democrat rivals...") as of 12:30 PM. Though one outlet is for journalists and the other is something I'd put in the right-wing category to say the least.

I guess at the moment I am much more interested in how this unfolds from a media coverage perspective, than whether or not there is any truth in the story. Either way, this is going to be a trainwreck for either Kerry or the sharks that get caught chasing nothing more than blood in the water.

At the moment, much of bloggerdom appears to be silent. Either they're getting real work done or waiting to see which direction things turn. As of 1 PM there's no word from Dave Winer, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis, or David Weinberger on the story. More importantly, I don't see anything from Mickey Kaus, Joshua Marshall, or Eric Alterman. Nothing from Jim Romenesko either but Andrew Sullivan has a very brief mention of the Drudge story in the Daily Dish.

Perhaps the real story and commentary is unfolding on the campaign blogs themselves. The Dean Blog has been on fire with comments and the John Kerry Blog has comments full of back-and-forth between Kerry and Dean supporters. The John Edwards Blog has comments that read like kids on Christmas morning.

At 2 PM there's nothing from CNN, although it appears as though Ken and Barbie are breaking up, Fox News isn't going near the story at the moment, and MSNBC is covering human cloning and the "battle" over gay marriage.

Of course, all of this is very early in terms of coverage and reaction. But it reminds me of past alleged scandals where the big voices let someone else like Drudge break the story and then pounced. Not only are most of the big media not covering this one but the tech bloggers turned political bloggers (and the just plain political bloggers) are no where to be found. Granted, there are a few exceptions.

Leave it to one of my daily reads, The Scotsman, to run the first mainstream story: "Mystery of Kerry and the Intern". It's essentially a rehash of the original Drudge story, but it leads with "Allegations against Vietnam war hero John Kerry today threatened his runaway presidential campaign." Something tells me the over-the-pond tabloids are redoing tomorrow's front pages as we speak, but what about The New York Times or The Washington Post?.

The original Drudge story alleges that "A serious investigation....has been underway at TIME magazine, ABC NEWS, the WASHINGTON POST, THE HILL and the ASSOCIATED PRESS." So is Drudge just lighting the match on a lot of gasoline that's already been spilled?

As of 3 PM the most active discussions about the story are happening at the Howard Dean Blog, the John Kerry Blog, the John Edwards Blog, and even the now defunct Wesley Clark Blog has something to talk about. Although they appear to be more interested in the actual news report that Clark will endorse Kerry tomorrow.

Nick Denton's latest micro-content blog, Wonkette, has some additional posts this afternoon. Editor Ana Marie Cox reports that ABC radio in DC has reported the story and she also links to a NewsMax.com article from April of last year titled "The Hill: Boston Globe to Probe Kerry Private Affairs". Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds has a few more links up, including one back to this site. Now I'm finally starting to see the blogosphere abuzz like gangbusters over the story.

Mickey Kaus finally chimes in [11:23 AM PT] and references a September 2, 1998 Boston Herald story about Kerry and a young Georgetown grad. Looks like he's writing, linking, and thinking fast and furious right now. Eric Alterman has also just referenced the story but notes that "I don’t ipso facto believe anything I read on Drudge, so I’m not going to make a big deal about its hypothetical implications."

This all reminds me of those Tootsie Roll pop commercials growing up as a kid. ("How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop?") The new questions is this: How long does it take for a potentially major story to hit the mainstream blogosphere? It looks like 2 1/2 to 3 hours. It could take that many days to reach the mainstream media. Blog on the rumor and print on the news? Perhaps not for everyone. Even some of the well known bloggers now have too much to loose by moving too quickly on a story. The cycle repeats itself. Stay tuned...