Drudge, Matt

▪ 2000

      Before ABC Radio announced in July 1999 its intention to expand the broadcast of American journalist Matt Drudge's radio show from New York City to major cities nationwide, ABC News Pres. David Westin heatedly objected to the plan. He contended that Drudge was often reckless in his reporting, relying primarily on rumours and gossip instead of facts. Westin's objections echoed the central question that many others had about Drudge: Was the man who used his Internet site to help break the story of U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky a populist journalist informing the public of news that the established press would not report—or simply a scandalmonger who pursued sensational stories?

      Drudge grew up in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Takoma Park, Md. In 1989, a few years after he graduated from high school, he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked in the CBS Television studio gift shop. After his father bought him a computer in 1994, he began publishing an E-mail newsletter featuring hearsay about the entertainment industry that he picked up on the studio lot. In early 1995 he launched the Drudge Report on the World Wide Web, and a year later he quit his day job and began covering politics.

      Drudge soon made waves in media and political circles. During the 1996 presidential campaign, he was first to report Sen. Bob Dole's choice of a vice presidential running mate. In 1997, based on an unpublished article from Newsweek magazine, he ran the story of Kathleen Willey's sexual harassment accusations against Clinton. Drudge ran into trouble later that year when he was slapped with a $30 million lawsuit after he ran—and then retracted—a story claiming that White House aide Sidney Blumenthal had a history of spousal abuse.

      In early 1998 Drudge's name became a household word. By January Newsweek had prepared an article on the president's affair with Lewinsky, but it was Drudge who first publicized the story, on January 17, after learning that the magazine was holding its piece back. In an address before the National Press Club, he defended his tactics, characterizing himself as a “citizen journalist” who exposed stories that mainstream reporters were hesitant or refused to print. Some observers praised Drudge for using the Internet to help change the way news was disseminated. Hits on the Drudge Report Web site, which had numbered around one million before the Lewinsky scandal, increased more than tenfold, and his notoriety landed him a weekly program on television's Fox News Channel as well as the ABC Radio show. His contract with Fox was terminated in November 1999 after Drudge accused Fox of censorship and refused to go on the air. The network had deemed Drudge's plan to display a photo of a 21-week-old fetus (actually one that was undergoing surgery) to illustrate his objections to partial-birth abortion as “misrepresentation.”

Locke Peterseim

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