WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a meeting with reporters Wednesday that "we are all going to have to rethink how we deal with" the Internet because of the handling of White House sex scandal stories on Web sites.
In an otherwise low-key question-and-answer session, Clinton was at her most intense when asked whether she favored curbs on the Internet, on which news services have serveral times made headlines themselves with their coverage of the president's purported affair with a White House intern.
"We are all going to have to rethink how we deal with this, because there are all these competing values ... Without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function, what does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation?" she said.
"There used to be this old saying that the lie can be halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on," Mrs. Clinton added. "Well, today, the lie can be twice around the world before the truth gets out of bed to find its boots."
The sex scandal has been closely linked to Internet news sites from the start. Online reporter Matt Drudge, of the Drudge Report, broke the story when he reported that Newsweek had held off publishing an account of the scandal. And stories on both The Wall Street Journal and Dallas Morning News Web sites have been withdrawn after the respective news organizations cited factual problems.
