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The wildly successful, informative, and edgy website of a clerk-turned-celebrity renegade reporter that is leading the explosion of Internet news and changing the face of reporting. Discover pre-breaking news and buried stories that expose the quirky and dark underside of corporations, the media, and politics, along with links to news sources around the world.
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"...In every state and nearly every civilized nation in the developed world, readers know where to go for action and reaction of news -- at least one day ahead. Sometime this afternoon, the DRUDGEREPORT will pass one billion views of the site's main page: in the past year! Free from any corporate concerns, there are simply too many to thank since the site's inception in 1994. This new attempt at the old American experiment of full freedom in reporting is ever exciting. Those in power have everything to lose by individuals who march to their own rules." - From DrudgeReport.com in February, 2003, its highest traffic month ever with over 113 million page views.
- "After years of being the underdog, disrespected and attacked from all sides, Drudge uses this platform to blast just about anyone within reach. Politicians, journalists, CEO's and everyone else in between - they all feel Drudge's wrath." - From University of Western Ontario Gazette's Drudge Manifesto by Matt Drudge.
- "So why is Matt Drudge here? He's on the cutting edge of a revolution in our business and everyone in our business knows it. And like it or not, he's a newsmaker...He came under fire in January when he posted an item on his website that Newsweek was holding a story about President Clinton's purported affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The rest is history." - Doug Harbrecht, President of the National Press Club and Washington news editor of Business Week magazine, introducing Matt Drudge before his speech to the National Press Club on June 2, 1998.
- "I have the Drudge Report bookmarked on my computer, as I would venture to guess every single reporter in Washington does. Instead of us being the distributors of the news, we're actually chasing the news." - Time Magazine senior writer Karen Tumulty in a BBC interview.
- "We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be. The difference between the Internet, television and radio, magazines, newspapers is the two-way communication. The Net gives as much voice to a 13-year-old computer geek like me as to a CEO or speaker of the House. We all become equal." - Matt Drudge to the National Press Club, June 2, 1998.
- "Wherever the stink is, we'll try to zero in on it." - Matt Drudge describing his radio show.
If you've recently turned on the news or picked up a newspaper, you know how easily you can become overwhelmed by the pace of our modern world. In this increasingly globalized and technologically connected information age, news changes faster than Jennifer Lopez's husbands. To maintain any hope of keeping up with the latest news, many of us have grown utterly dependent on major news outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, network nightly news broadcasts, and talk radio programs. However, with the benefits of these major outlets come problems, as well.
For example, the sheer volume of available news can make it difficult to hone in on the best stories. There is often a delay in reporting certain events, as these sources, with vast political and corporate interests involved, decide how to spin a story, or whether to run it at all. Moreover, important stories deemed unflattering, quirky, or not conducive to the organization's sales goals may end up buried on page ten - if not buried completely. Clearly, remaining solely dependent on these institutionalized radio, television and newspaper outlets is...well...bad news. In view of these limitations, how can you be sure you won't miss the latest examples of political pussyfooting, our cocky media, or corporate crime laid bare?
Enter Matt Drudge, a self-described modern FIX-Walter Winchell, and his famous website, DrudgeReport.com. The site - where Drudge single-handedly beat out the major news organizations in breaking the Monica Lewinsky scandal and instigated a $30 million lawsuit from the White House - is one which news junkies and conspiracy theorists, well-informed citizens and gossip-hounds alike will enjoy frequenting. Here, Drudge exhibits his knack for finding and distributing the stories that expose the core of corporate, political, and media corruption, including stories you won't find elsewhere until days later, and some of the quirkiest and most unique stories from around the world.
While his site is an irrepressible example of the shift from reliance on television, radio, and print to the Internet for news, don't expect a completely objective, unbiased answer to the self-interested corporate media. Drudge transparently brings to the site his own biases, and often, in the process of racing to break stories, blurs the line between journalism and gossip. However, his strong partiality towards the individual and the "little guy" set him apart from other news outlets, resulting in a unique perspective on up-to-the-minute news combined with a convenient, centralized directory of global journalism. His stories incorporate tips from the newswires, other media outlets, and voluminous emails (Drudge claims to receive thousands per day) from everyday people, celebrities, and other highly placed media sources. Also offering convenient links to the main newswires, along with direct links to columns from some of the news world's most interesting writers - coming from all sides of the ideological spectrum - you'll find DrudgeReport.com not only informative, but extremely useful.
His ability to reveal next week's water-cooler discussions today has earned Drudge an astounding web traffic base and notoriety - and infamy - from throughout the media world. DrudgeReport.com's main page received over 100 million views in February, 2003, has surpassed both USA Today and the Washington Post as lucrative website advertising domains, and has entered the pop culture pantheon, making Drudge himself somewhat of a celebrity. On the strength of his site - aided generously by the publicity following the White House libel suit and the Lewinsky revelation - Drudge has become a hot commodity, featured on television (ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, CBS's The Late Show with David Letterman, CNN's Crossfire", and NBC's Meet The Press with Tim Russert and Today with Matt Lauer) and in print (Newsday, Playboy, Time Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal).
In addition, Drudge has made forays of his own into television and radio. He has had his own television show on FOX, and hosts his own weekly syndicated radio show. In 1999, he joined ABC News in analyzing the President's State of the Union Speech. In fact, his influence has become so pervasive that even mainstream journalistic institutions have been forced to take note, and he has become a sought-after speaker. Drudge's speech at New York University's Department of Journalism merited an entire website section devoted to him. But, perhaps his most notable and unexpected breakthrough was his invitation to speak at the prestigious Washington, D.C. National Press Club, where he delivered an insightful and often scathing speech, in the face of somewhat hostile interrogation, about the state of our media today.
Lambasted by many as a mere gossiper who lacks journalistic standards, those same critics can nonetheless be found checking his site religiously just the same, anxious to keep up on the latest news. Even the White House staffer who sued him for libel was up looking at his site the night before. Love him or hate him, he is a force to be reckoned with in the media world today and a powerful example of the trend towards web-based news services and the ability of one man to raise his voice in the new era of communications. Not bad for a former gift shop clerk without a college degree.
The story of Drudge's ascendancy has become nearly legendary in media circles, and is described in detail - along with Drudge's views on the current media situation and more - in his book, (Fix - Amazon) Drudge Manifesto, written with Julia Phillips. The aforementioned gift shop just happened to be located in CBS Studios, where Drudge managed the shop for seven years. From this convenient post, he was able to overhear volumes of gossip about Hollywood, politics, and the media, and, wanting to relay it to the public, he began posting news tidbits to Usenet newsgroups in late 1994 from a personal computer his father gave him, right out of his apartment.
Going on the premise that the "first step in good reporting is good snooping", Drudge capitalized on his auspicious locale in the studios by finding ways to service the executive suites, and even volunteering in the mail room where he could get hold of memos. One of his first big exclusives came when a stagehand told him that Jerry Seinfeld was demanding $1 million an episode for his television show. Drudge began collecting an email list of regular readers of his updates and, on the strength of inside stories like the Seinfeld one, the list grew exponentially from a handful of readers to hundreds of thousands. In 1995, Drudge decided to start a website as a more efficient means of distributing his discoveries and DrudgeReport.com was born.
Drudge and his website were first dragged widely into the national spotlight when he was sued for libel, along with America Online, for $30 million. The suit stemmed from Drudge's August 10, 1997 publication of a story claiming that Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal had committed spousal abuse. The story, which Drudge released through an America Online column, turned out to be false, and he immediately issued a retraction and apology. Unsatisfied, Blumenthal forged ahead with his legal challenge, which some came to see as a landmark Internet first amendment case. Adding weight to the proceedings was the fact that Blumenthal had received permission to pursue the case from President Clinton and Vice-President Gore, one of the few times a President has ever sanctioned legal proceedings against a member of the press.
The charges against AOL were soon thrown out, but the case against Drudge went on for nearly four years. Unable to defend himself in such an extravagantly expensive suit, Drudge was assisted by the Center for Study of Popular Culture, the same group who has helped fight the V Chip and other forms of communications and Internet censorship. Seeing the Drudge case as a crucial statement on individual liberties and free speech on the web, CSPC used its legal arm, The Individual Rights Foundation, to form the Matt Drudge Defense Fund to help with Drudge's legal defense, along with the Matt Drudge Information Center, to assist in building Drudge's case in the court of public opinion. Blumenthal eventually settled, paying $2500 for Drudge's attorney's travel fees on the condition that Drudge promise not to counter-sue.
It was in January, 1998, that Drudge began to truly become a household name. He received information that Newsweek was sitting on a story that linked President Clinton to a young White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. While Newsweek wrestled with whether to print the story or not, Drudge posted on his website information about both the sex scandal itself and Newsweek's reluctance to print it. For four days, the biggest story of the year resided exclusively on the website of a lone reporter posting from a $650-per-month apartment. It was finally reported by the Washington Post several days later, lending mainstream credibility to Drudge's story, and the rest is history.
But, it wasn't only Clinton's legacy that was changed forever. The mainstream press had been upstaged by a populist Internet site in the most public of ways, and few missed the clarion call that a new day of news distribution was upon us. The changing tide of news reporting and the rise of the Internet as a formidable source of speedy, widely distributed information, was confirmed by some of Drudge's later work. In addition to the Lewinsky scandal, Drudge is credited with having been first to report such national stories as Bob Dole's selection of Jack Kemp as his 1996 Vice-Presidential running mate, the firing of Connie Chung from CBS, and Princess Diana's death, which he claims to have announced 8 minutes before CNN.
Today, Drudge continues publishing his site from Miami Beach and hosting his weekly radio show. In keeping with the Clinton cover-up that made his name, Drudge still relishes exposing new political scandals, seeing himself as part of the watchdog wing of the press that keeps leaders honest and exposes corruption of power. Corporate corruption receives similar treatment, and tales of executive excess appear frequently on Drudge's page. He also has clearly not forgotten how his exposure of the Lewinsky story was disdainfully treated by the other media outlets, which gladly took his story and ran with it, only to then attack his lack of credentials, rather than praise his diligence in chasing down the story. As a result, Drudge now takes on the media itself with the same aggressive style he applies to everyone else.
When you're working on getting the stories fast, there isn't always time to completely verify facts. Thus, Drudge's stories continue to linger in the space between news and gossip, far from being the gospel. Drudge himself claims to be only 80% accurate, so read his page critically and with a grain of salt. But, if you use it as a loose guide, and pepper it liberally with your own subsequent research, you'll be surprised at how often Drudge will faithfully direct you to stories that turn up in the larger press days later. Whether you love or hate Matt Drudge's ideology, reporting style and aggressive attitude, it seems clear that DrudgeReport.com is here to stay. So hit the links, and take a peek into the future of the media, where one individual at his computer can single-handedly break open a story exposing the darker side of our greatest corporate, media, and political institutions.
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