While delivering remarks in the Rose Garden about financial regulatory reform, President Obama was briefly upstaged by a scurrying rodent. The critter’s cameo sparked heated debate over its zoological identity (was it a rat? a mouse? a vole? WTF is a vole?), some Zapruder-esque photos, and a raft of rodential quips. The little guy even got a Drudge link and a Twitter shout-out from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

The story of John Edwards‘ affair with Rielle Hunter seems to have raised a media meta-quandary about how to treat stories reported by The National Enquirer. Should we report on them? Should we report that they’re being reported? Throw in a Drudge link to an already explosive rumor like, say, the President covering up an affair with a former campaign staffer, and it’s damn near irresistible. There is a responsible way to cover something like this

The Washington Post did a lengthy profile on Robert Gibbs, from which the Huffington Post gleaned a list of the six biggest press corps complaints about Gibbs. There are some fair criticisms, some of which have been echoed on the record here at Mediaite, but much of the criticism of Gibbs is simply built into the divergent roles of Press Secretary and reporter.

Out magazine’s annual list of the most influential gays and lesbians has been announced and CNN’s Anderson Cooper again tops the list of media names, coming third for the second year in a row. Although Cooper and fellow power-lister blogger Matt Drudge (he dropped from 6th to 15th) have never publicly acknowledged being gay, that doesn’t stop Out from consistently counting the two men–as well as actress Jodie Foster–when tallying who is gay and lesbian.

When I first saw Lloyd Grove‘s version of the now-annual effort to autopsy the White House press corps, I rolled my eyes in agreement with Glynnis MacNicol.

Then, I noticed that not one of the 3 C-Spans, nor any other news outlet, carried yesterday’s briefing. Heh, neat coincidence. No biggie. The timing’s a little weird, but these things happen.

Still, before this gains any more traction, allow me to make the case for the press corps to the writer of next year’s “Press Corpse” piece, and anyone else who’s interested.

MSNBC anchor David Shuster, while not technically on the “White House beat,” has lots of experience covering the White House both from within and without. In the balance of our interview, he offers insights into the process that differ significantly from what we’ve heard in other Inside the White House Press Corps interviews. As promised, here is my full interview with Shuster, in which he discusses covering the White House, lazy reporters, interviewing space aliens, plus the first two parts.

MSNBC’s David Shuster made an appearance at yesterday’s White House briefing, and afterward, sat down for an interview for Mediaite. While not a regular presence in the briefing room, Shuster is more than qualified to render an opinion on the journalism being practiced there, and that distance allows him to make fresh observations. In this preview of our interview, I asked Shuster for his take on the position of people like Andrew Breitbart, Matt Drudge, and James O’Keefe in journalism. His response was rather surprising.

Earlier this week, the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms, the body’s official gatekeeper, levied a warning to staffers to avoid such sites as Matt Drudge’s DrudgeReport.com and several other online destinations, such as WhitePages.com. The rationale? Apparently the Senate Help Desk has been dealing with a large number of viruses, and these sites were possible sources of computer problems. Drudge thinks that timing is…convenient.

One of the reasons I started the “Inside the White House Press Corps” series was so that people could see a different side of the people who play a large part in guiding the American political narrative. In this preview of my interview with NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd, we see a more animated figure than we’re used to, discussing the “Drudge Effect” (my phrase) in journalism.

Is it gay-baiting to call the head of the government agency responsible for surveillance and airport screening “Big Sis”? It is–according to Huffington Post’s Eat The Press Columnist Jason Linkins and Towleroad’s Andy Towle–when you are referring to the never-married Janet Napolitano and you reference Matt Drudge.

The Daily Beast took a stab at one of the harder sciences of the media world last night, publishing a list of the top 25 most influential right-wing journalists in America. It is a pretty comprehensive list, with all the usual suspects making appearances, and both conservative and libertarian columnists taken into consideration. “What unites them all, broadly,” writes columnist Tunku Varadarajan, “is their influence on the public debate, and their place on the political spectrum—which is somewhere to the right of center.”

According to a new business profile in the Financial Times, conservative magazine and daily website Newsmax thrived in a year filled with media misery, scoring $35 million in revenue, after $25 million in 2008, and scoring a much-anticipated Sarah Palin endorsement in a chat with Sean Hannity. Speaking of Fox News, does this sound familiar: “liberal media” alternative excels in increasingly partisan news space? Bingo.

Is Drudge warming up to the idea of climate change? After spending last month heralding the leaked Climategate emails and the subsequent uproar over the Copenhagen summit, Drudge has been devoting some significant space to extreme weather conditions taking place around the globe. So much so he’s devoted the entire upper left section to it!

Newspapers are dying, magazines are dying: this is the story of 2009 where the media is concerned. However, the future of media, such as it is, does not look quite so dim. Or dim at all, really. Obviously, the brave new media world that we are slowly moving into (some at a quicker pace than others!) will look entirely different in twelve months’ time, likely in large part due to the efforts of the folks we listed on our online editors of the year poll. So who gets the final nod? Our picks below: feel free to add yours in the comments section.

I finally got around to watching the now-famous (thanks to Drudge) video of Democratic Montana Senator Max Baucus’ tirade on the Senate floor, which the right has touted as evidence of the Senator’s intoxication. That’s a pretty serious accusation, and one that would normally require better corroboration than this. In my search for another explanation, I discovered an alternate theory that actually springs from the left: Baucus’ speech has been affected by a head injury.

A number of conservative websites are claiming that Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) was guilty of orating under the influence on the Senate floor. A newly viral video depicts Baucus speaking on the Senate floor, while making irregular gesticulations, odd pauses and slurring of words. Some are claiming that the recent torrid pace brought about by the Health Care vote has exhausted the Senate body, and is the reason behind this, and other odd behavior.

If 2009 was a tough year for magazines and newspapers — and boy, was it ever — it was a bang-up year for the editors of the blogs listed here. Now we are asking you, our loyal, smart, and attractive readers to share your thoughts on who had the biggest year in the Online Editor category:

On last night’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann included a quote by Andrew Breitbart that sounded rather familiar to me. I waited a few seconds to see if there would be any attribution, but the onscreen graphic simply said “Andrew Breitbart – Dec. 10.” Where was the source?

And so it begins.

Huffington Post’s Jason Linkins did a fine job, the other day, of cataloging the right’s sudden antipathy for chants of “USA! USA! USA!” Now, with the news that the IOC has rejected Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid in the first round, conservatives are in the awkward position of trying to slam the President for failing to achieve the very thing they just said was a horrible waste of time.

It’s 1993 again! Last night, Countdown fill-in host Lawrence O’Donnell ran a segment on the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Riffing off of Bill Clinton’s Sunday Meet the Press appearance, in which the former president said that the conspiracy is “as virulent as it was” during his presidency, but not as big, O’Donnell went one further and said it was bigger and nastier. Does the claim hold up?

A new video of New Jersey schoolchildren learning a song in praise of Barack Obama for Black History Month to the tune of “Jesus Loves the Little Children” is arousing some of the same anger as Obama’s first day of school speech earlier this summer. The video, which is over six months old, hadn’t received any attention until Matt Drudge and Fox picked it up. Meanwhile, B. Bernice Young Elementary School had to go on lockdown because of threats on the principal’s life.

Is Glenn Beck a Rush Limbaugh fanboy? It certainly feels that way. Between the glowing things he’s written about him, the admiration he’s expressed in interviews, and their buddy-buddy banter on TV, his fanboydom rings clear.

Being a fan is one thing; being a follower is another. Has Glenn Beck consciously modeled himself on Limbaugh — and if so, does he have Limbaugh to thank for his surging success?

How do you handle the news that a decorated international correspondent who put his life on the line for his job narrowly escaped captivity and death? If you’re Matt Drudge, you turn it into a totally misleading New York Times smear!

Once upon a time, a chauvinistic, clubby press often gave male politicians at the highest levels of government a relatively free pass on their sexual affairs. Now, thanks to the Internet, the misdeeds of someone as lowly as a a Republican Yorba Linda assemblyman named Michael Duvall can become national news in the blink of an eye. Here’s how:

Yesterday, the New York Observer took their turn in the age-old tradition of reporting on Matt Drudge‘s demise. Every so often some editor or reporter notices a new sliver of damning evidence, surely marking the end for the Drudge Report, and decides that this time it might just be enough to squash the seminal ring-wing news aggregator once and for all. But as a notable wordsmith once said, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”