I've been a news junkie for years, fueled in part by the days I spent working fulltime as a newspaper reporter and copy editor -- how else to pass the time between deadlines (hell, often on deadline) than by seeking out the latest headlines and commentary. And for news junkies, the Internet is the greatest of enablers, even for folks like myself who prefer paper and ink.

Like other media outlets, a great deal of news found on the Web is ridiculous (and repetitive), but there's good stuff out there too. In terms its nutritional news value, the Drudge Report is certainly not the good stuff. Still, I check the site regularly to feed my news junkie needs. Despite Matt Drudge's blatant conservative slant and overuse of bold, red headlines and the silly animated siren .gif, he does scoop some big stories. But firmly in the Ridiculous Category is anything written internally by the Drudge Report.

A fine example is a "story" about Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN that's been on the site's front page last night and today: HOLLYWOOD ROCKED: 'GAY COWBOY' MOVIE BECOMES AN OSCAR FRONTRUNNER.

In the past, Drudge's coverage has been labeled anti-gay by some while he himself has been outed by others. I don't care about his sexual orientation. I do care when he publishes sloppy, sensational reports like this one.

A few of the lowlights, with my response...

Arriving with nudity and explicit gay sex scenes between two cowboys, UNIVERSAL/FOCUS FILMS's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN has quietly become an award season frontrunner, interviews with Academy members reveal.

Describing the sex in the film as explicit doesn't really hold-up. I don't know if Drudge's already seen the film (doubtful), but that doesn't keep him from blindly throwing out an adjective like explicit -- and I think it's pretty safe to assume he means explicit as in graphic. I've seen "Brokeback," and its sex scenes are not graphic. Granted, the sex in the movie isn't implicit either -- the two cowboys, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, are shown being physically intimate on-screen. Some of their encounters are intense and passionate, but unless you find the idea (or depiction) of gay sex shocking, by no means could any of them be rightfully called graphic.

"It could very well be the last film standing at this year's Oscars," a top Hollywood producer not associated with the film explained from Hollywood.

"There was not a dry eye in the house at the screening at Telluride [Film Festival in Colorado]," says the producer, who asked not to be named out of respect for the cast and crew of the producer's own Oscar contender. "Watch it come out of the gate at the Golden Globes with super controversy."

Stupid industry hype, and an anonymous source at that. Telluride is where I saw "Brokeback Mountain." Despite some issues with the way the film was made (namely, the score and editing), it ended up being one of my favorite films of the festival. It was touching, but -- and please don't think less of me for it -- my eyes were dry.

But will a movie even Madonna calls "shocking" sit with the heartland?

Playwright and lifelong Wyomingite [sic: who?] tells the STAR-TRIBUNE of Casper this week that she has never encountered a gay cowboy, and doesn't think it's right for Hollywood to portray Wyoming as a state with gay cowboys.

Her message to the writers of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN: “Don't try and take what we had, which was wonderful -- the cowboys that settled the state and made it what it was -- don't ruin that image... There's nothing better than plain old cowboys and the plain old history without embellishing it to suit everyone."

Madonna a cultural barometer? Please.

And here Drudge is sloppy: failing to identify the Wyoming playwright or credit the reporter whose work he lifted her quote from. The playwright -- Sandy Dixon -- was named in the full version of the story, written by Deirdre Stoelzle Graves.

I've never heard of Dixon before, and judging from her quote, that's not a fact I regret. Some real genuine ridiculousness for you. I'm sure every time she meets a real-life Wyoming cowboy on the street, her greeting includes an inquiry about sexual orientation.

And I hope Dixon reads Graves' story, which includes input from Chuck Browning, a rodeo cowboy and member of the International Gay Rodeo Association who graduated high school in Casper.

Meanwhile, Michell Howard of the state's Travel and Tourism Division says her agency is already hearing a buzz that people in other countries are expressing interest in visiting Wyoming because of the film.

“It's gotten rave reviews from the international community,” she said. “I don't know if they're more tolerant or something, but they're viewing it as a great Western movie.”

Wyoming is beautiful, but so is Canada... I do hope they're referring all those tolerant tourists to Tourism Calgary.

Well, that's all I got for now. See BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN when you can. Signin' off and riding into the sunset...