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Matt Drudge - http://www.wabcradio.com/showdj.asp?DJID=1734 (Date: Unknown)
Matt Drudge, the Internet's hottest scoopster and the one-man news bureau that broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal, complements 77 WABC's provocative line up with a political news and gossip show. 'Wherever the stink is, we'll try to zero in on it,' says Drudge about his weekly program.

Drudge exudes the take-no-prisoners attitude that has also earned him a talk show on The Fox News Channel and highly publicized guest spots on 'Meet The Press' and 'Nightline', as well as widespread scorn from his journalism colleagues. Drudge is the author of 'The Drudge Report', the widely read Internet website focusing on political news and the business of Hollywood, where he exposed the Lewinsky scandal to the world and scooped Newsweek Magazine.

Drudge was raised in Takoma Park, Maryland, where he was a 'loner' and a news junkie, a kid who grew up with talk radio as company. His first jobs included the night shift at a 7-11, and selling Time Life books over the phone. In Los Angeles, he started 'The Drudge Report' in 1995. He was managing the CBS studio gift shop and thought it would be an amusing hobby to use the Net to relay the gossip he overheard. Drudge's declared aim is to give 'the American people' the information he believes to be correct or important, and to revolutionize the media industry with a breath of fresh, young air.

Playboy magazine calls him "Journalism's bad boy, Clinton's worst nightmare", the New York Times calls him the "country's reigning mischief-maker", and Bill Clinton called him "Sludge." (Date: Unknown)
These are some of the descriptions of Matt Drudge, and there are many more. Many times, you will hear people refer to Drudge in a negative connotation; this is because he has made many enemies in the news world as well as in Washington.

Matt Drudge is an Internet reporter as well as gossiper. He runs his own website called The Drudge Report and posts links to news stories and gossip that he wants to get out, as well as stories that he finds important. Many seem to agree with him, as he gets millions of hits every day, and over a hundred million a month. If YOU do not like Drudge, YOU are probably upset that he has taken the journalism world by storm, or YOU are pissed that he told the whole world about how YOU groped an intern in the White House.

Visiting the Drudge Report reveals a simple layout, much like an on-line newspaper. He has one ad at the top of the website, and then his top stories. His trademark block letter logo is then followed by the rest of the stories that he deems newsworthy.

Many people claim that he is not a real journalist, and therefore discount the stories posted on the Drudge Report. This assumption is wrong as most of the links on his website are to other online newspapers. What Drudge does is scour the Internet looking for hard to find stories, important news and overseas tidbits. He reads stories from all over the world, and if he finds something he finds newsworthy, links it off his website. This allows people looking for the top news stories to go to one Website and get everything they need, without having to deal with all the other stuff nobody cares about, such as why an old hospital was abandoned or what student political slate the editorial board endorses.

However, along with the links Drudge provides to news stories from around the world, he also files reports himself. Many times, someone may have a story they want to write, but can't get published because their paper has certain political or business ties. These stories end up with Drudge. The Monica Lewinsky scandal broke on The Drudge Report first, not any other paper. Why would Matt Drudge be able to get this story out to the world and not a giant publishing powerhouse with connections, ties and money to burn? Because he is independent. He is not owned by anyone, nor does he care who he is enemies with. When the Lewinsky story broke, Bill Clinton even took notice. When testifying before a grand jury, Clinton said "I had a little anxiety the next day, of course, because of The Drudge Report." Newsweek had the story first, but they canned it. Drudge took the story, and gave it to everyone.

Matt Drudge is also known for his book, Drudge Manifesto. A collection of stories, thoughts and ramblings, one gets a sense of Drudge's love for his freedom when reporting, as well as his disdain for the established news world. You also get a sense of his political leanings. Drudge has a chapter dedicated to Al Gore, Jr. in which he embarrasses the former Presidential hopeful with stories of liberalism gone wrong, whereas the following chapter dedicated to George W. Bush is devoid of any stories altogether.

Stop by The Drudge Report and see what freedom of the press is all about.

Matt Drudge is the Internet's hottest scoopster and the one-man news bureau that broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal. (Date: Unknown)
Drudge exudes the take-no-prisoners attitude that has also earned him a talk show on The Fox News Channel and highly publicized guest spots on 'Meet The Press' and 'Nightline', as well as widespread scorn from his journalism colleagues. Drudge is the author of 'The Drudge Report', the widely read Internet website focusing on political news and the business of Hollywood, where he exposed the Lewinsky scandal to the world and scooped Newsweek Magazine.

Drudge was raised in Takoma Park, Maryland, where he was a 'loner' and a news junkie, a kid who grew up with talk radio as company. His first jobs included the night shift at a 7-11, and selling Time Life books over the phone. He moved to Los Angeles 10 years ago, and then started 'The Drudge Report' in 1995. He was managing the CBS studio gift shop and thought it would be an amusing hobby to use the Net to relay the gossip he overheard. Drudge's declared aim is to give 'the American people' the information he believes to be correct or important, and to revolutionize the media industry with a breath of fresh, young air.

Editorial Reviews - Amazon.com (From: Before 2000)
Working from a small apartment in Hollywood, Matt Drudge became one of the country's most notorious journalists when he reported that Newsweek had spiked a story about a sexual relationship between President Clinton and a certain White House intern. Of course, there are many (mostly professional reporters) who argue that Drudge should not be labeled a journalist at all, and it is upon this issue that the Drudge Manifesto is based. As Drudge notes, he has "no budget, no bosses, no deadline," and as a result of this independence he is both feared and reviled, admired and respected. Ostracized by the establishment he may be, but his popular appeal is undeniable: the Drudge Report Web site received over 240 million hits in 1999, and the numbers are rising. Members of the White House staff check in daily, as do many of the media elite who viciously denounce Drudge in public. Like it or not, he has become a force in Internet journalism.

Drudge collaborated with Julia "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again" Phillips to produce a writing style that reads like a breathless and often disjointed e-mail. But the book is a vehicle for ideas, not sparkling prose, and its value lies in Drudge's assessment of the current state of the media as well as his take on its future. One of the most interesting (and certainly the clearest) parts is a transcript of a Q&A session conducted at the National Press Club on June 2, 1998, which lays out Drudge's manifesto better than the book itself. The NPC is hostile territory for Drudge, and, unsurprisingly, he is grilled by moderator Doug Harbrecht. In the end, Drudge makes a strong and thoughtful case for his methods and his right to be a reporter. And he gets in plenty of zingers of his own: "You know, these questions are pretty tough, and I think if you directed this type of tough questioning to the White House, there'd be no need for someone like me, quite frankly."

This is also a chance for Drudge to sound off. He boasts of beating CNN (by eight minutes) to the announcement of Princess Diana's death; of being the first to report Bob Dole's selection of Jack Kemp as his running mate; of his scoop of the Microsoft-NBC merger. He replays the events surrounding his decision to release the Lewinsky information on January 17, 1998 (the book is dedicated to Linda R. Tripp), and volunteers his favorite Web sites and sources. His book is not only a manifesto but a manual for anyone interested in following his lead. "With a modem, a phone jack, and an inexpensive computer, your newsroom can be your living room, your bedroom... your bathroom, if you're so inclined," he writes. In today's media climate, that's the way it is. --Shawn Carkonen --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

New York Times "The country's reigning mischief-maker."

Washington Post "Matt Drudge is the buzz of the media-industrial complex."

Playboy magazine "Matt Drudge is journalism's bad boy, Clinton's worst nightmare, the guy who scoops the big-time media."

Rush Limbaugh "Matt Drudge is the man who is to the Internet, what I am to broadcasting."

Camille Paglia "Matt Drudge is the kind of bold, entrepreneurial, free-wheeling, information-oriented outsider we need."

Brill's Content "Matt Drudge is the most controversial reporter in America since Woodward and Bernstein."

President Bill Clinton "Sludge."

Sunday News, Lancaster, PA - Book Description: "Everyone's talking about Matt Drudge and Drudge Manifesto - In this wave of scandal, deceit, and hypocrisy hitting Washington and the world of politics, who can help the public divide 'the truth' from 'the spin'? His name is Matt Drudge. He is feared and reviled...cheered and celebrated. He's a hero and a visionary-or enemy No. 1. Drudge Manifesto further cements his reputation on both sides."

Miami Herald Article - 2003: Linking his way from one news site to the next, Matt Drudge has not only created a lucrative business but also paved his own road to INTERNET SUCCESS
Matt Drudge, Internet personality, is a self-styled seeker of the truth, specifically of hidden and obscured truths. If there's a Drudge brand he'd like to convey, it's of the relentless, rumpled, ever-vigilant newsman - always connected and plugged into his network of operatives. The truth is a bit less dramatic.

From his Miami Beach condo, Drudge monitors television news channels and websites on three computers set up in his home office. Using WindowsXP and other off-the-shelf software, he updates his website, Drudgereport.com, several times a day. Contributors to traditional print and broadcast media sometimes derisively refer to Drudge, who gained national notoriety for his postings during the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky affair, as a gossip monger- or worse. But Drudge, 36, has turned Drudgereport.com into quite a tidy enterprise.

By his own estimate, the journalist, former convenience-store clerk makes about $1.2 million a year, including revenue from his nationally syndicated Sunday night radio show, which airs, in Miami, on WIOD. His Internet site is mainly a portal, an index of news stories that appear on newspaper and wire-service websites. He writes catchy headlines for his top links, augmented by his own stories based on tips from his virtual network of Internet informants - many employed by mainstream print and broadcast outlets. Much of his information during the Clinton impeachment investigation came from leaks by journalists and political operatives.

So what does that make Drudge? "I'm a newsman and not a journalist," he said in a recent interview, "nor a cyber this or that." Since his site is primarily composed of links to stories on other sites and is a Web log, commonly called a blog, how about a blogger? "Nope. Sounds too much like booger," he said. Drudge describes his own politics as libertarian (with a small L), though his part as a catalyst in what some called "the vast right-wing conspiracy" that precipitated the impeachment hearings brought him a dedicated right-of-center following, which he continues to cultivate.

Contrary to popular perception, his is not a solo act; his longtime friend and associate Andrew Breitbart, a Californian, monitors and updates the site when Drudge himself is asleep or away. But not always: During a recent interview with The Herald, Drudge admitted that Breitbart was "vacationing in Mexico and I'm sitting here with you, so the site is not being changed."

Still, his reputation for being all knowing is such that many radio hosts check The Drudge Report before starting their air shifts, just to make sure they know what's going on. "Once I was listening to Michael Savage's [syndicated radio] show and he opened by reading from The Drudge Report on the air, story by story - in order - without once mentioning that he was looking at my site," Drudge said with obvious amusement.

ADVERTISING PAYS - As a business, The Drudge Report's revenues are derived solely from advertising, which is sold by Intermarkets, an Oakton, Va. agency that also sells Internet ads for The Chicago Sun-Times, The Village Voice, NewsMax, Human Events and others on its website. According to the rates posted on www.intermarkets.net, advertisers are charged $3 per thousand impressions for banner ads, or $4,400 a day (discounted to $29,000 a week). The banner ads are rotated, so visitors may see one for AT&T Wireless, The New York Times or another client each time they visit the site.

On a typical day in August, Drudge's site had nearly 6.5 million visitors, and it had 163 million in the preceding 31 days. The Internet traffic site Alexa.com ranked Drudgereport.com 215th in current Web traffic. After Intermarkets takes its commission, the ad revenue is almost pure profit for Drudge, who says he shares a percentage of his profits with Breitbart. The overhead is minimal: $4,000 a month for Webserver costs plus about $20 a month for Internet service. And that's about it, according to Drudge, since he works from his home.

He's not a big spender, though he says he likes to travel to Europe - "Lots of high-speed Internet access there and has allowed himself one other indulgence: a Corvette. Although he might be able to pull in more income by selling special reports, subscriptions and assorted Drudge paraphernalia, he said he wasn't interested. "I'm probably the worst marketer out there," he said. "I just don't care. I put my energy into the site."

What's now a moneymaking operation began as a hobby. Drudge, who grew up in Maryland and moved to Hollywood in California, held a number of retail jobs. His last before his evolution into Drudge Inc. was at the CBS-TV gift shop.

ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT - In 1994, he began posting on Internet Usenet sites, based, in part, on information acquired while exploring the CBS executive offices. The content of those reports was remarkably similar to the current ones: show biz, politics and the weather, with punchy prose and an anti-establishment tone. He also posted his offerings on an early version of his website, attracting hits from all over the place. Meanwhile, he collected thousands of e-mail addresses from executives and power brokers. His postings were generally welcome and helped establish the Drudge name early in the life of the Internet as a go-to site for breaking news. Wired, a futurist business magazine, began running Drudge's reports on its website, paying him $3,000 a month for the privilege. That lasted about a year. America Online called next. It enlisted him as a content provider, paying the same monthly $3,000 fee as Wired but giving him a much larger audience.

The investigation of former President Clinton that began as a probe of the Whitewater real estate deal in Arkansas and culminated in impeachment brought new attention to Drudge and his site. He also began a weekly Sunday night radio show, first on the ABC Network, then on Premier, a division of radio giant Clear Channel.

'A LISTENER'S DELIGHT' - "The radio show is a news/talk programmer's dream," Miami's WIOD program director Peter Bolger said. "And judging by the show's ratings, it's a listener's delight as well." Drudge also fills in frequently for Tampa's Todd Schnitt, whose show also airs on WIOD. "He has such a positive energy," Bolger said. "We always look forward to him coming to the WIOD studios."

Drudge also did a weekly TV show for Fox, but it ended after a year. Though still based in California at that time, he said Fox insisted that the show originate from its New York studios. He acquiesced but booked frequent layovers in South Florida and, relocated here "in time to celebrate New Year's Eve 2000." He avoids most investments and banks his money, he said, because he doesn't know how long his site - and his reign - will last. "What happens if everyone charges for content?" he asked. "It's already started. Who will be left to link to?"

Matt Drudge - From: Before 2000
With a new show on the Fox News Channel, the online gossip takes his controversial act to TV. Don't fear the Internet, he says. "It's a mirror of who you are."

Matt Drudge's gossip-blabbing Web site is one of the most read and reviled stops on the Internet. Now, with a new show on cable's Fox News Channel (Saturdays, 10 p.m. ET), Drudge believes he has the right attitude and the right mug to conquer TV. "My face looks like it's been punched," he says proudly. "People are tired of pretty-boy reporter studs. [A television newsman] shouldn't have a face that's perfectly cut. He shouldn't look clean, because news isn't clean."

Certainly, Drudge, 31, is a master at dirt. Fans turn to his "Drudge Report" (available via e-mail or at his Web site, www.drudgereport.com) for mucky reports not found in other media. In January, when Newsweek opted to hold its blockbuster story on a then-unknown Monica Lewinsky, Drudge broke the news worldwide.

Drudge is a kind of old-time gossip hound with a cyber-edge. If he'd been the Newsweek reporter whose Lewinsky scoop was held, he says, "I'd have quit, walked into the street, called a press conference and said, 'I've got a story to tell!' " When he learned of Lewinsky, Drudge says, he "ran down the street screaming, 'This just in!' My street happened to be the information superhighway. But I was screaming as loud as I could, with exclamation points flying!"

The Net allows the free speech envisioned by the Founding Fathers, Drudge says. "The Internet is what you make of it. If you think it's just porn, it says something about you. If you think it's just gossip or sports -- it's a mirror of who you are."

Critics charge that Drudge's Internet is unchecked rumormongering. He incorrectly reported rumors that White House adviser Sidney Blumenthal had abused his wife. Drudge retracted the item, but Blumenthal filed a $30 million libel suit.

Drudge, who works out of his apartment in Hollywood, says mainstream media types want to ruin him because they fear the Internet. But when major newsmagazines write dismissively about garbage on the Net, Drudge has to laugh. "I read them in toilet stalls."

DRUDGE'S ADVICE - How to view news on the Internet: "Magazines like Penthouse, The National Enquirer and Time are all sold on the same newsstand. The Internet is just like a newsstand. Consider the source." If the Clinton-Lewinsky matter makes you "feel dirty": "You should feel dirty, but not because the reporting is dirty. It's a dirty story, and it's unresolved. President Clinton promised to tell us more sooner than later. But he hasn't. Don't shoot me; I'm just a reporter."

"Woodward and Bernstein used a parking garage to meet sources. I have online chats with White House staffers."

Question conglomerates: "Don't believe the Time Warner spin on things. They control a lot of magazines, movies, broadcast outlets. They get to decide what's hot. Like John Travolta: He's a cold fish, but Time Warner wants to maintain that he's hot. They're looking out for their own interests."

Renegade E-Journalist Comes Clean - BY Danny Gallagher: Daily Texan (U. Texas-Austin) (U-WIRE) AUSTIN, Texas - From: Before 2000
Turn on the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, flip on CNN Radio News or pick up a copy of USA Today and everything you need to know is all there, right in front of you. Or is it?
Matt Drudge knows there's more to the story than what meets the public eye.

The Internet's star reporter has been shaking up the mainstream media and the political front ever since he first posted the name "Monica Lewinsky" on his Web site DrudgeReport.com. The site is located in his tiny, Hollywood apartment, which Drudge jokingly refers to as his "newsroom, built by Radio Shack."

Now Drudge's first book, Drudge Manifesto, co-authored by Julia Phillips, chronicles the scoops of the independent news site that is almost always one step ahead of the mainstream press. Drudge's site has bragging rights to being the first to report the death of Princess Diana, the NBC-Microsoft merger and the events that led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

And just like Drudge's unique approach to journalism, he not only tells you what went on during those tense moments behind the keyboard of his Hewlett Packard computer but also his thoughts and opinions on just where journalism, both on and off the air, is headed in the next century.

Drudge Manifesto's style, however, is a bit different compared to other books written by high-profile journalists. Drudge himself is cast as a character struggling to find truth in a world where sound bytes are 20 seconds shorter, not everything newsworthy makes the six o'clock news and where all of his stories are subject to criticism. His subconscious is presented through his sarcastic cat, "Cat."

"Whaddya think yer doin', Drudge?" Cat asks just as Drudge is about to break the first of many stories on the Lewinsky sex scandal. "Am I reading this right? You're about to accuse POTUS (President of the United States) of having it off with an intern? Are you preparing to blow up Washington? Get me Janet Reno...!"

Drudge also tries his hand somewhat unsuccessfully at reinventing the publishing medium by constructing sentences in a style that's unique but also annoying. Some sentences are put together incorrectly, emphasizing his desire to get to the point. The sentences come off a little hard to comprehend, much like a badly written e-mail from a friend who has the typing ability of a third-grader with double vision.

Drudge Manifesto also serves as a mini-biography of Drudge's growing interest in journalism from his days as a 7-Eleven employee who always got the early edition of most major newspapers to his first few celebrity scoops he got while working as a CBS gift-shop clerk in Hollywood. But more importantly, Drudge Manifesto is a megaphone Drudge uses to spout his beliefs that modern media is dying a fast death.

According to Drudge, the modern media isn't just dying. It's probably already dead.

Of course, anyone who gets ostracized by the establishment more times on a daily basis than Gary Coleman would be expected to lash out against their oppressor. But Drudge, from his own experience as a freelance journalist in the new media of the Internet, presents some interesting examples to prove his own opinions.

Drudge uses the media's coverage of the violent World Trade Organization protests in Seattle among a crowd of unprepared police officers. He scans the satellite feeds on his television and all the major news Web sites from ABC News.com to USA Today.com to some smidgen of a mention of the letters "WTO." But not much gets reported until the story becomes a matter of national interest days after the carnage commenced.

Drudge believes that corporately owned news organizations including the ones on the major networks are constantly pulling the wool over the public's eyes based on business tactics and what move is best for economic stability.

Could you expect anything less shocking from the only news reporter in the history of American journalism to be sued by the White House for libel?

Reviews - http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0451204913/customer-reviews/202-9467233-1703043
Drudge Manifesto - Matt Drudge: Reviewer: S. Casey from London, UK
Matt Drudge, Internet Clark Kent or malignant Puritan?, 7 November, 2001
DrudgeReport.com is the website run by a self-confessed "untrained D student who happened to get lucky" out of a poky LA flat with a modem and a 486. Matt Drudge came from nowhere in 1998 to scoop the big boys on Monica Lewinsky and with a little help from grand inquisitor Kenneth Starr nearly laid low the president. His Drudge Manifesto is a funny and sharp account of how it all happened, and also asks some big questions about the future of the media and its role in US politics.

Now attracting over 3m hits a day to his site, Matt has that prerequisite for any media superstar: natural-born showmanship. He bitches big time about the modern affliction of infotainment, that blurring of the lines between news, advertising and entertainment neatly covered here in his asteroid-approaching-earth hoax-cum-homage to Orson Welles. But quitting his hometown of Washington DC to work as a clerk in a Hollywood tv studio and getting his first scoop by liberating "late century gold" Nielsen ratings from the rubbish bins before the cleaners could, it's a world he's enmeshed in, not least because he's so darn entertaining himself. And as he's written this book in conjunction with Hollywood producer Julia Phillips, can the biopic be far behind?

Drudge's paeans to the Internet's role in advancing citizen scrutiny of the - ahem - organs of government notwithstanding, the book also provokes some darker considerations. First off, from a post-September 11th perspective we might now ask why was the most powerful nation on earth convulsed through much of 1998 by the fact of a little presidential semen on a dress? Weren't there some mighty big foreign policy issues that could have done with a bit more attention? But the navel gaze is not new to US politics. "Anyone speaking out on world affairs was tagged pronto as a bore and stiff-armed socially, " said Ben Hecht in Gaily, Gaily, his memoir of his years as a cub reporter in 1910s Chicago, before he became an Oscar-winning screenwriter, working with Hitchcock and Billy Wilder. Hecht's friend Clarence Darrow also fingered another curious element of the US psyche, what he called its "malignant Puritanism". Some of Drudge's calls suggest he, too, may be a victim. When the prez wanting to watch Boogie Nights constitutes an expose of " the real state of leadership in the country", and the details of the Lewinsky cigar story have "stunned all those who have heard them and investigated them" and "now threaten to completely disgust and stun the American electorate", a jaded eurocynic can only yell: grow up.

Accused of eschewing traditional journalistic practice, such as corroborating his sources fully, Matt defends himself deftly in front of the National Press Club. Claiming his conscience as his guide, his mantra is: "I just go where the stink is." But someone who occupies a place in his disaffections is San Jose Mercury News publisher Jay Harris, whom he accuses of having "brought to the world an erroneous story of the CIA and cocaine in LA", while Larry Nichols, an aggrieved former Arkansas Finance Development Authority worker who launched a law suit against Clinton "in which he named five women he swore the Arkansas Governor had p***ed", receives nothing but bright praise. However, although they appear 40 pages apart in this book, there's a connection between Jay and Larry, or more particularly between the Mercury News story and the AFDA, of which a well-informed chap like Drudge can hardly be unaware. For a fuller picture, see Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press by old skool investigative journalists Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair (it includes a useful chapter titled "Making Afghanistan Safe for Opium"). And contrast Drudge's out-of-hand dismissal of the Mercury News story with the words of the man who wrote it and lost his job over it, Gary Webb: "If anything, we pussy-footed around some stuff we shouldn't have, like CIA involvement and their level of knowledge. I'm glad I did the series because this is a story that gutless papers on the East Coast have been ducking for ten years". Just the sort of stinky thing a free spirit like Drudge would want to take up? But hey, Matt, just say no. Webb published his own account of his researches into the CIA's drug links, Dark Alliance, in 1998.

So where's Drudge's place in the scheme of things? Some of his pro-Internet, pro-creativity statements make him sound like William Blake. But alone in his Hollywood flat with only his cat for company, he's also a dead ringer for Blake's "solitary shadow wailing on the margin of nonentity", pallid next to the full-blooded Hecht. For all that, I hope he gets his movie, with Clare Danes as his gal, a Cagney for the 21st century crying: "I'm King of the Ftp*ing World!".

Internet rebel Matt Drudge's early years - By Eddie Dean - Washington City Paper. From: Before 2000
Imagine you are on a street in a leafy Maryland suburb outside Washington, D.C., June 10, 1981, 5:30 p.m. EDT.
Young Matt Drudge watched the rolled-up newspaper tumble lethargically through the thick humid air and land with a pathetic thud on the front porch. He had come to despise the sound.

At that very moment, standing in the dead end of a Takoma Park street and weighed down by his bulging sack of Washington Stars, the veteran paperboy nearly collapsed as a breaking bulletin flashed in his overheated brain. "Delivering newspapers sucks," said Drudge, gritting his teeth. "There's got to be a better way to deliver the news! Something faster. Something that doesn't suck."

He despised the dailies' stranglehold on the true freedom of the press, constantly quashed by the battalions of editors and sub-editors, yellow-bellied libel-shy cowards, every sniveling one of 'em.The glory days were over for the old-school newspapermen he revered, those gritty scribes who started as errand boys and battled their way up the ranks, dishing dirt on the rich and powerful. In the post-Watergate world, to snag a job as big-time reporter at a media conglomerate like the Washington Post you had to be a Harvard boy and an all-around wingtip-licker, getting stories spoon-fed to you by fat-cat sources between rounds of back-scratching at the Palm.

What chance did Drudge have, anyway? He was a wretched student, one of those born rebels who simply can't abide the rules of school discipline and proper grammar. Early on, he had realized the futility of raising his hand and waiting to be called on. He sat in the back row, stayed mum, and passed notes, keeping with Joyce's maxim: silence, cunning, and exile.

He was already a media junkie, scouring the papers and eyeballing the TV news shows. Most important, though, he was blessed by a set of jutting, oversize ears that could pick up stray bits of hush-hush for miles around, what he would later call the "network of whispers."

Young Drudge was interested in the "news," not the lump of dead wood pulp and triple-sourced bilge that lay at his feet, but that ever-elusive bird of innuendo that flies unfettered, chirping flighty proclamations even while defecating on those below.

Someday, young Drudge vowed, he would be a leader in a media revolution in which news flashes and red-hot exclusives of every conceivable sort would streak through an endless night. In that bold future, anyone could be a reporter, no matter what his writing or communication skills, as long as he had the guts to get the scoop. Of course, until then, he had to finish his paper route.

"I love Takoma Park. It was a great place to grow up. When I pass through there, I get all tingly. It was magical, there was a lot of places to go get lost."

It's Matt Drudge, sole proprietor of the Drudge Report, the most talked about one-man, damn-the-establishment vanity press since Thomas Paine's Common Sense. He's yapping in his nasal voice on the Bat Phone from his one-bedroom Hollywood apartment, what he modestly calls "the most dangerous newsroom in America." As usual, the West Coast weather is dead-solid perfect, with no chance of precipitation. "It's a beautiful day, going up to 80 degrees," he reports. "I'm just sitting here petting the cat and watching the wires, that's all I do."

Forget Drudge's phenomenal success breaking news stories, the Sidney Blumenthal lawsuit, and even his upcoming TV show on Fox (which Drudge humbly suggests may change that medium forever). Let's talk about the making of an American outlaw, an alienated young man who grew up in the shadow of the most powerful government in the world, wondering what made it tick. Let's take a look at the larval years of a media bottom-feeder.

"I remember climbing trees and rolling down hills and raking leaves and throwing acorns and sliming fireflies on the sidewalk and watching them glow," he says of his boyhood frolics in Takoma Park. "I'd stare at the clouds and daydream. I had my own little world."

Yet there was more to this latter-day Huck Finn than killing bugs and running wild in his suburban outback. Early on, he also displayed a Tom Sawyer-like affinity for the follies of the adult world, namely that great Sodom in his own back yard, Washington. It seems that the Washington Star delivery route may have at least sparked, if not sealed, his future destiny. "I used to sit there and read the paper," he says. "Half the fun was getting to read the stuff. I was always looking at those Op-Eds and seeing who was doing what to who and stuff like that. I was more interested in the media stuff than the politics, and still am. Ever since I was a little boy I've been obsessed with the D.C. culture, which was strange, since no one in my age group was interested. The only good grades I got in school were for current events."

The only child of two government workers, Drudge zealously protects the privacy of his parents, who, according to him, have "gone underground" since his sudden fame. Of his father, who still works for Uncle Sam, Drudge will reveal only the following memorable anecdote: "He was a big Nixon hater, and he was one of the original people to wear a Nixon mask, so there's some continuity here."

Drudge says he might still be delivering for the proletarian Washington Star today if only the paper were still around. "I was really into it," he says. "I was making good money at the time, but unfortunately the paper folded. I still have my Washington Star delivery bag. The Star was more like some "people" type of thing. The Washington Post is so arrogant, and they can't stop writing about me. I'm in there again today..."

Over the phone comes the sound of fingers furiously tapping on a computer keyboard. It's Drudge busy at work, doing what he does best: gathering dirt, this time on himself. "I do a little Lexis-Nexis search every morning to see how bad it's gotten," he says. "It's funny, because the established people are the most inaccurate ones, Newsweek gets more things wrong than anybody."

As he hit his high-school years, young Drudge began to embody some of the bleak qualities suggested by his surname, like a character lifted from a Dickens novel. He shot up to nearly 6 feet tall, but he was all gangly limbs, and his rail-thin angularity was emphasized by a long, skinny face, coal-black beady eyes, a boxer's nose, and those magnificent jug ears, which had somehow managed to outpace the amazing growth spurt of the rest of his body. In an age of glitter T-shirts and Boy George, Drudge was about as contemporary-looking as a chimney sweep.

At Northwood High School in Silver Spring, young Drudge was the epitome of the dark, brooding loner. "Not only was he anti-social and anti-establishment, he had this chip on his shoulder," says a high-school classmate. "And he had a real sinister demeanor about him. Most of the girls were afraid of him, he had that I-might-do-something-crazy type of attitude. He always had this disheveled look about him, very unkempt, and he had bad acne and such a hard, mean-looking face. You've got to work hard to look friendly with that face. Probably the only reason he talked to me was because I was the only one that didn't judge the Drudge."

The paper route was already ancient history, but young Drudge's obsession with the media racket remained. The classmate says that Drudge would walk the halls like a reporter on some imaginary beat, decked out in a press hat and a speckled sport jacket: "It was like the hat Jimmy Olsen wore at the Daily Planet. No one wore a hat like that unless they were being silly or for school-spirit day, but Drudge had it on all the time."

Still, Drudge made no effort to join the high-school newspaper or participate in any other activity. Not only did he reject the academic regimen, he also forsook any athletic or extracurricular activities. The other kids listened to Rush and Skynyrd and played sports and Pac Man and joined cults like the key and glee clubs, but not Drudge. He even rejected the after-school vices so common even today: smoking, drinking, and drugging. Nothing. Drudge resembled a teen Bartleby, issuing an everlasting "No" to any hint of peer pressure from the in crowd or anybody else.

"He wasn't into anything. He was a nonentity at school. He showed zero interest and zero volition and he just did the minimal amount and went home. He came across as really caustic and cynical and kids just weren't ready for that, especially back then," says the classmate.

Drudge wasn't a total cipher, he often spoke with the brutal wit of an accomplished young nihilist. "He was real perceptive watching people," recalls the classmate. "He was very, very observant, and I think that carried over into what he's doing now. Back then, when he did say stuff, he had a knack for coming off the wrong way."

Forsaking the social circles of teen cliques, young Drudge staked his solitary claim to the no man's land between the jocks and the geeks, the stoners and the preps. His '84 yearbook entry is one of the briefest ever recorded in the annual Arrowhead. The inscrutable senior revealed little except his zodiac sign (Scorpio), his favorite color (Caribbean blue), his preferred food (Jalapeño bologna), and his personal motto ("Where there's a will, there's a way").

But perhaps the most telling document from the early Drudge years is a so-called "Last Will and Testament" that Northwood High seniors wrote at the end of their last year. Most of the student entries contain the usual whimsical, goofball, or locker-room wisecracks. But Drudge's entry is brooding and melodramatic, even in the context of common teen angst. It may have been his first published work, and in its misspellings and faulty grammar it uncannily foreshadows the Drudge Report itself:

"I, Matt Drudge, being of sound mind and body, do hereby leave the following: To my only true friend Ms. thing, Vicky B, I leave a night in Paris, a bottle of Chaps cologne and hope you find a school with original people. And to everyone else who has helped and hindred [sic] me whether it be Staff or students, I leave a penny for each day I've been here and cried here. A penny rich in worthless memories. For worthless memories is what I have endured. It reminds me of a song, 'The Funeral Hyme [sic].'"

Upon hearing a full recital of his Last Will and Testament, Drudge is taken aback and uncharacteristically at a loss for words. He definitely remembers Vicky B but doesn't recall being quite so dark and bitter.

"I don't know where you're getting this stuff," he says. "This is really esoteric stuff. Any rumors of me screwing any pigs or anything?"

What about the hat?

"That's garbage!" says Drudge, raising his voice on the phone line, and then breaking into a hearty Herman Munster-esque guffaw. "That's just folklore." He flatly denies that he ever wore a press hat or anything like his current signature tweed headgear during his days at Northwood High. Maybe a baseball cap, but he can't remember for sure. "I don't wear the hat even now all that much. It's just a persona." (But he can't help adding that someday his book will be titled "This Hat Talks".)

Drudge admits that the teen years were tough on him and school was the ultimate torture, his only regret is that he didn't drop out way before graduation. (He was 325th out of a class of 350). "I was bored with it all," he says, proudly declaring that his only extracurricular activities were passing notes and cutting class. "It was rigid, it was stupid, it was a lot like the news coverage now. There's very little originality going on. Everything I've learned I've learned on my own. I'm self-taught. I've kept some original thinking or what I think is original. [Other journalists] have to listen to an editor saying yes or no. I don't listen to anybody."

As for his mythical role as a bad-boy hallway loner, Drudge says that is spun fantasy as well:

"I got kind of popular in the senior year," he recalls, describing excursions to hiphop shows in New York. "I was going out with a few nice ladies. The funny thing is they're just getting back into my realm. They're e-mailing me: 'Remember me? I went to school with you.' It's like reunion through e-mail."

Drudge even recently heard from Ms. thing, Vicky B, the old flame he toasted in his Last Will. She lives in Ottawa now, he says. Nice girl, but no dice, Vicky. Drudge gets so many e-mails every day ("about 10,000," he says) that he couldn't answer more than a fraction of them even if he tried. So many scoops, so little time.

Drudge does pull away from the computer screen long enough to get excited about his Washington homecoming, though. "I'm gonna see if the town's as dirty as it reads," he says, laughing his Herman Munster laugh. "Washington's quite happening; I just think it's a dangerous town. I think if I stayed there too long I would get into even more trouble than I'm currently in."

MATT DRUDGE Gossip Columnist - http://www.who2.com/mattdrudge.html
Matt Drudge grew up in Maryland, near Washington, D. C., then headed west to Los Angeles when he was a young man. After a series of low-paying jobs and frustrated dreams of being a journalist, he launched a Website in 1995. Celebrity gossip he had overheard or found by digging through the trash provided him with the occasional "scoop" to go a long with a no-nonsense list of links to news services and columnists. Drudge also added political gossip to the mix, and in 1998 broke the story of an affair between Monica Lewinsky and U. S. President Bill Clinton. Drudge's flair for the theatrical (he dresses in the costume of an early 20th century muckraker) made him an instant hit on the same media outlets he regularly criticized, and soon he had his own commentary show on radio and TV. By 2000 he had been fired by both ABC radio and Fox television, but in 2001 he bounced back with a weekly radio show on WABC, and is now heard on the Premier Radio Network on Sunday nights, 10pm -to- 1am Eastern time.

Extra credit: Matt's dad, Bob, runs the extremely useful reference site, Refdesk.com.

Born: 1967 (?;) Birthplace: Maryland; Death: Still kicking; Best Known As: "Citizen journalist" who runs The Drudge Report.

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1017963475.php From: Before 2000
It's been six years since Matt Drudge launched the controversial Drudge Report to the consternation of 'professional' journalists, many of whom, in a telling twist, have come to not only feed on Drudge's facts and scoops but depend on him for tips on breaking news.

Since its launch, the circulation of the Drudge Report has grown to 1.5 million page views a day (over 340 million a year). In that time, Matt has changed neither the computer he uses nor the aesthetics of the site, yet he continues to receive over 10,000 daily e-mails, as well as tremendous press coverage, most notably for his 'scoop' about l'affaire Lewinsky.

In an era when online news sites fold almost daily, and only a select few of the remaining show any hope of ever turning a profit, when the big news corporations spend millions worrying about 'monetization,' 'ad revenue models,' and how to further blur the separation of church and state, Matt Drudge soldiers on.

SALON Mag. article about Matt's dad, who runs REFDESK.COM - http://www.salon.com/21st/feature/1999/02/23feature.html
The DRUDGE Dynasty - MATT ISN'T THE ONLY MEMBER OF HIS FAMILY TO STAKE OUT A PLACE ON THE WEB
BY JANELLE BROWN mailto:janelle@salonmagazine.com
Meet Web personality Bob Drudge. No, that wasn't a typo -- we speak of Bob Drudge, the polite and reclusive proprietor of refdesk.com, who also just happens to be the father of a better-known Drudge.

Yes, Matt Drudge is not the only Drudge to have turned himself into a dispenser of online information. Matt comes from a veritable dynasty of Webbed relatives: Not only does his father maintain a high-traffic site, but his grandmother Gladys Drudge has a sweet personal site -- The Drudge Connection -- devoted to documenting the Drudge family history. (Bob Drudge's brother David, Matt's uncle, is also online, as a journalist at the Barstow Desert Dispatch.)

Salon connected with Bob Drudge via e-mail ("I usually don't do interviews; Matt and I are very much alike in this regard," he writes) to get the family story. Writes Bob, "Most people now know Matt is my son. For a long time, many people thought I did BOTH refdesk and the Drudge Report. For those who don't know of our relationship, they truly seemed surprised and impressed we both produce popular sites on the West and East Coast."

Although the senior Drudge got Matt started by giving him his first computer, it was Matt who encouraged Bob to get online. Their online roles have diverged from there: Whereas Matt Drudge is typecast as a Net gossip columnist, Bob Drudge would be better described as a Web librarian. A family therapist and social worker living in Maryland, Drudge began refdesk.com as a "diversion" in 1995, around the time Matt's newsletter was taking off. It was, he says, a way to "create and maintain order" in the chaos of the Web.

Today, refdesk.com is a virtual emporium of utility; much like a librarian's reference desk, the site primarily points you to outside resources. Need the exact time in Bangkok, the franc-dollar exchange rate, a farmers almanac, stock quote or a world fact book? Refdesk will show you exactly where you need to go. The site carefully catalogs 400 pages worth of links, ranging from every American newspaper column of note to conspiracy theory Web sites to worthwhile Web cams.

Bob Drudge explains: "I'm not Yahoo, don't try to be. Yahoo lists anything. I index sites that people want and use. I know of no other site like refdesk. I was thinking of a 'cyber-Dewey' type of indexing system but that seemed too arcane and impractical. I wanted a more intuitive schema. Usable. Accessible." The resulting index is apparently so usable and accessible that the site draws an impressive 15,000 users a day -- many of whom Bob believes come from schools, libraries and universities that use his site as a "portal."

Although Gladys and Bob both offhandedly refer to Matt on their Web sites, they seemingly haven't tried to cash in on the now-famous Drudge moniker. Other than a modest link to the Drudge Report on the front door of refdesk.com, the only mention of Matt is worked in to a hidden mission statement: "My son, Matthew, is editor of the successful Drudge Report. Being sued for $30 million by the White House, Matt has come to symbolize First Amendment issues on the Net."

But while refdesk.com does diligently link to the Drudge Report, the Drudge Report does not have a reciprocal link. Is this a filial snub? Matt Drudge did not respond to e-mail and repeated telephone messages, but Drudge père says: "Simple explanation. Matt only links to sites he uses on a regular basis. I link to useful sites regardless of my personal usage, although I read the Drudge Report daily."

An uncharitable observer might suggest that Matt could make good use of a fact-finding resource like refdesk.com, and that he should be visiting it on a regular basis. Regardless, Bob Drudge certainly does fill the role of a father proud of his son's online success: "Matt's fame is magical. He's truly a populist journalist. The people love him. The media love him. His critics love him. The White House logs on to the Drudge Report hundreds and hundreds of times PER DAY!" - SALON | Feb. 23, 1999

Drudging Admiration - HOW MATT DRUDGE MAY WIN HIS COURT BATTLE -- BUT LOSE THE WAR FOR MEDIA RESPECTABILITY.
BY MIKE GODWIN - Feb. 2, 1998
As the media furor about the president's alleged sexual adventures rages, the scandal has created a fascinating sideshow: the rehabilitation of Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge. In a matter of days, Drudge went from scorned purveyor of unsubstantiated rumor to honored talk-show authority.

But the shift in the mainstream press's attitude toward Drudge -- from snooty disdain to cautious respect -- is unlikely to last, given that few mainstream journalists are willing to acknowledge that the nature of Drudge's work is scarcely different from that of their own. And if "Tailgate" fizzles as a scandal, you can bet that the press, eager to find someone else to blame for the media frenzy, will seize upon Drudge as a convenient scapegoat.

A number of media pundits -- notably Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's media critic -- were all too ready last fall to proclaim Drudge's demise as a media force after White House aide Sidney Blumenthal filed a $30 million lawsuit against Drudge and America Online, which carries his trademark mix of political and Hollywood dish. (Drudge reported correctly that Blumenthal was rumored in right-wing circles to have a history of spousal abuse, but erred in failing to determine that there was no evidence to support that charge.)

But now that Drudge has played a key role in igniting the media firestorm surrounding President Clinton and his supposed affair with a White House intern, the 30-year-old columnist is once again being treated as a serious player by leading media institutions.

The shift in Drudge's treatment by broadcasters has been extraordinary. Shortly before the Monica Lewinsky story broke, the Blumenthal-Drudge case was the subject of an installment of Ted Koppel's "Nightline." Koppel's primary guest was Kurtz, whose eagerness to slam Drudge led to his making claims about the reliability and probity of the traditional press that are demonstrably untrue. Kurtz argued that a newspaper's editorial hierarchy is what prevents a paper from publishing defamatory material -- a revelation that must be rather startling to Richard Jewell, whom the traditional press wrongly presumed to be behind the bombing at the '96 Olympic games in Atlanta. And Kurtz asserted that a mistake like Drudge's would get him fired from any reputable newspaper -- an assertion that even Koppel felt compelled to dispute.

Following the first week of the Lewinsky story, however, it was hard to watch any TV account of the scandal without hearing a reference to Drudge's having "broken the story." And, in fact, Drudge did break some parts of the story, including the fact that Newsweek opted at the last minute to delay publication of its own coverage. (Spurred by Drudge's report and the resultant frenzy, Newsweek used its America Online site to get its version into circulation, but felt constrained in the following week's magazine edition to emphasize that its reporter, Michael Isikoff, had uncovered parts of the story that Drudge didn't know about.) On Jan. 25, a week after publishing his major Lewinsky piece, Drudge appeared both on CNN's "Reliable Sources" (whose very name imposes the CNN imprimatur on any guest) and on NBC's venerable "Meet the Press." And in the next few days he appeared on shows ranging from "Talkback Live" to "Leeza."

But this shouldn't be taken as proof that the journalistic establishment has embraced Matt Drudge; what it really illustrates is the profound ambivalence with which that establishment regards him. You can see this ambivalence in Michael Kinsley's essay "In Defense of Drudge," which was a part of Time's package dealing with the Lewinsky affair, and in John Schwartz's essay in the Jan. 26 Washington Post. Kinsley feels compelled to distinguish between what Drudge does and what the really good journalists -- like Kinsley -- do, but then proceeds to defend Drudge as meeting a sort of allowable substandard. Schwartz is more straightforward: He begins by admitting his "powerful feeling" that if he ever met Drudge he wouldn't like the guy.

But the strongest evidence of this ambivalence is the failure of mainstream journalists, in their coverage of the Blumenthal-Drudge suit, to report that it's likely Blumenthal will lose the case. The professional journalistic establishment tends to assume Drudge will lose -- partly because Drudge genuinely did err, but also because it believes this lawsuit illustrates that the journalism game is not one for amateurs and upstarts. The establishment couldn't be more wrong -- Drudge and AOL are likely to win (or at least not lose) because of three basic libel-law principles that almost every working journalist knows:

1. Public-figure doctrine. No one (except maybe Blumenthal's lawyer) seriously disputes that White House aide and former journalist Blumenthal is a "public figure" as that term is used by the courts. This means that Blumenthal can't win against Drudge unless he can show that Drudge published his story with "actual malice" -- that is, he either knew for certain it was false, or simply didn't care whether it was true or not. Unfortunately for the plaintiff, there's no evidence that Drudge ran the piece with "actual malice," and plenty of evidence that he did not. To be counted in the latter is Drudge's inclusion, in the original piece, of a White House source's assertion that the spousal-abuse claims were (in Drudge's words) "pure fiction," although (in the source's words) "This story about Blumenthal has been in circulation for years." At worst, the evidence tells us, Drudge was negligent -- he tried to make his story accurate, but he didn't try hard enough -- and it's a long-standing principle in American libel law that public-figure plaintiffs cannot recover libel damages for merely negligent reporting.

2. Vicarious liability. Blumenthal's lawyer argued in a filing Wednesday that America Online should be held legally responsible for Drudge's mistake, since the online service pays Drudge for the content. Sorry, Sidney, but libel law doesn't work that way in this country, and it hasn't since the 1960s. To hold a distributor of information liable for defamatory content, a plaintiff has to show that the service either "adopted" or reviewed the content in some way -- but AOL quite deliberately acts as a channel, not as an editor, for most of the content it carries, including the Drudge Report. (AOL also pays the New York Times and Newsweek for content; does anyone think it should be held liable when these august institutions goof?) What's worse for Blumenthal is that one of the provisions of the Communications Decency Act that was not struck down last year by the Supreme Court seems to bar anyone from recovering damages from a provider for content it did not originate.

3. Repairing reputational damage. Ask yourself this question -- if you know that Drudge retracted and apologized for his report on Blumenthal, how has Blumenthal's reputation with you been damaged by the report? The obvious answer: It hasn't. Every working journalist knows that libel law isn't about fixing someone's hurt feelings; it's about remedying damage to public reputation. In this case, the mainstream media's eagerness to report Drudge's goof ensured that the story of the retraction outpaced (by orders of magnitude) the scope of the original item. What's more, while Drudge pulled the original item from his archives, his retraction has remained posted on his AOL site for about five months -- meaning that, even if you exclude all the other media coverage from the equation, Drudge has made the retraction available about 150 times as much as the original item ever was. Worst-case scenario under these facts (even if you assume I'm wrong in my arguments above) -- Blumenthal wins the case and is awarded damages of $1.

This is all old hat, of course, to our cadres of professional journalists; they learned this stuff in J-school or on the job. But their blind spots about Matt Drudge -- a sort of "don't try this journalism stuff at home" attitude -- prevents them from seeing not only that Drudge will likely be successful in his libel lawsuit defense, but also that Drudge has spotlighted a new niche in the mass-media ecology: the one-man operation that can break a national story whenever it wants to. It's this last factor -- and not Drudge's politics (which I find distasteful) or his journalistic acumen (uneven) -- that has made him so much of a player that he had to be included on that "Meet the Press" panel.

But don't expect Drudge's centrality in the breaking of the Lewinsky story to insulate him from the backlash that's already brewing -- and that's certain to intensify if the scandal fades or implodes. If "Tailgate" collapses, Drudge, and by extension the Internet, will become the "paparazzi" of the story -- the guys who do the same thing we journalists do, but from whom we feel compelled to distance ourselves. - SALON | Feb. 2, 1998

Mike Godwin is staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a fellow at the Media Studies Center. He was one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in Reno v. ACLU, and his book, "Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in a Digital Age," will be published by Times Books in June 1998.

Let's Get This Straight - Don't visit the sins of Matt Drudge upon the Net
By Scott Rosenberg - Aug. 21, 1997
"Too good to check!" This was only a half-joking phrase in the big-city newsroom where I worked for a decade. It got applied to delectable tips, rumors and gossip that might not withstand the scrutiny of careful reporting but that could be fit into the more loosely patrolled confines of a daily column without causing an attack of editorial conscience. From the New York Post's Page Six to the San Francisco Chronicle's late legend Herb Caen, the print media have always understood the value of a good old gossip column in selling papers.

"Too good to check" also seems to be the working philosophy of Matt Drudge, the Net-based gossip columnist. Drudge is a conservative-leaning Hollywood dirt-disher who says he idolizes Walter Winchell and who has creatively used the Internet to build his reputation. From his own Web site and mailing list to content-distribution deals with Wired News and, more recently, America Online, Drudge has built a small media empire on hearsay, tips and some adroit trolling of media companies' internal computer systems.

The Drudge empire shook this week after Drudge ran an item accusing journalist and recently appointed White House aide Sidney Blumenthal of having "a spousal abuse past." A fast retraction hasn't kept Blumenthal's lawyers from his door; they're threatening a whopper of a libel suit that's also expected to name America Online as a defendant. Drudge told the Washington Post: "Someone was trying to get me to go after [the story] and I probably fell for it a little too hard ... I can't prove it. This is a case of using me to broadcast dirty laundry. I think I've been had." That wouldn't make him the first reporter to be so used -- but it does suggest that there is a downside to Drudge's gleeful proclamations (to Newsweek) that he has no editor and therefore "can say whatever I want."

Nevertheless, the truth is, Drudge isn't doing anything too different from the print predecessors and colleagues upon whom he has modeled himself. But the fact that he's online has given print pontificators an easy cudgel with which to whack him. And so we have Todd Purdum in Sunday's New York Times: "Drudge works in a frontier medium, established by academics but now also infested with the phantasms of conspiracy theorists, kooks and disinformation specialists." Purdum, hilariously, goes on to quote newspaper editor Jerry Nachman as saying, in regard to the Internet, "There are no rules of the road" -- as if the newspaper Nachman used to edit, the New York Post, had any kind of journalistic good-driver credentials.

Similarly, Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post sagely observes that "the Internet has turned anyone with a mouth and a modem into a global publisher." But was it the Internet that gave Drudge his soapbox -- or the bevy of national publications, including Time, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal, that ran sometimes fawning profiles of him and helped him build his circulation? If Drudge were truly operating so far beyond the pale of legitimate journalism, why are so many legitimate journalists encouraging him? When will the mainstream media stop tarring the entire Internet each time anyone uses it irresponsibly? Or should we here on the Internet start holding the New York Times responsible for every dumb UFO story the Weekly World News has ever published?

EN ESPAÑOL...
El rey de los ciberchimentos (Date: Unknown)
Matt Drudge (36) nunca estudió periodismo. Sin embargo, es uno de los reporteros más populares de la red. Desde su sitio web (www.reportedrudge.com) y con un muy particular estilo para informar, Drodge mantiene cautivos a millones de lectores que se conectan a diario para ver cuál es la última locura que se anima a publicar.

Casi todas sus noticias son rumores cuya veracidad es incomprobable y, aunque parezca mentira, ésa parece ser la clave del éxito.

Su máxima medalla profesional fue haber sido el primero en publicar que Bill Clinton, ex presidente de los Estados Unidos, había tenido un "affaire" sexual con la becaria Monica Lewinsky. Otra primicia: la muerte de la princesa Diana.

Todo empezó en 1995, cuando a Matt se le ocurrió recolectar y reenviar los chimentos políticos y de la farándula hollywoodense que circulaban por la red. Hoy continúa trabajando solo y su sitio sigue siendo tan poco llamativo como siempre. Eso sí, ahora embolsa casi un millón de dólares por año por publicidad digital y por derivar visitantes a otros sitios.

Como los viejos cronistas de la década del ’50, Drudge usa trajes ajustados, sombrero y anteojos de marco grueso. "Cualquiera con un módem puede ser periodista" asegura.

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