Matt Drudge, 900 lb. web gorilla

The LA Times has an interesting story about Matt Drudge and his website, The Drudge Report. He began in a $600/mo apartment in Hollywood, and now lives and works at his condo in The Four Seasons resort in Miami. People who used to call him names are now eager to get noticed by him.

"An idiot with a modem," huffed MSNBC personality Keith Olbermann. "The country's reigning mischief-maker," said the New York Times. "A menace to honest, responsible journalism," intoned Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff.

Sometimes Drudge was indeed wrong, like the time he falsely accused Clinton administration official Sidney Blumenthal of spousal abuse.

But usually he was right, most memorably when he disclosed in 1998 that Newsweek magazine had spiked a story on Bill Clinton's White House trysts. It was the first public revelation of the president's relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, and it came from a 32-year-old guy operating out of a $600-a-month apartment in Hollywood.

Although Drudge was promptly denounced as a right-wing lackey with no journalistic standards or standing, his pursuit of the scandal forced the traditional media to jump on the story, too. With a few flicks of his fingers, Drudge had demonstrated the power the Web can bestow upon a lone voice determined to be heard.

Since then, the Internet has emerged as the medium of choice for hard-core news consumers, who increasingly rely on bloggers and aggregators like Drudge to supply links that guide them through the thicket. By getting into the game early and becoming arguably the most recognizable personality online, Drudge was positioned perfectly to capitalize on the behavior of today's audience.

"Obviously, for some journalists, there's a lot of irony that Matt Drudge was a black-hat villain, and now a lot of those same journalists realize that getting a link on his website is crucial to their stories getting wider attention," says Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com. "That's the way the Web works. We're all trying to make sure our journalism is discovered."