Drudge Passed Over A Great Variety Exclusive In Favor Of A Copycat; Is The Paywall To Blame?

Variety landed a great exclusive today. A bona fide, hot, wonderful exclusive that should be available to millions of readers all while showcasing the place as a great breaker of big entertainment news. 

Paul Thomas Anderson's uber-controversial film “The Master” is coming earlier. It certainly is a notch on Jeff Sneider's belt...and SHOULD mean the world to Variety leadership. But beyond that, it should be worldwide...a major attention-grabber.

But the paywall has quite possibly scared Matt Drudge off so much in the past, that he took that bona fide, hot, wonderful exclusive -- the one he would have posted for the globe to see -- and discarded it…for Roger Friedman’s complete -- but free to access -- rip-off story.

So there ya go. Friedman's Xerox copy is getting plenty of readers, and the Variety exclusive is now just...there. I assume everyone in editorial is pissed off now. I would be.