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Date of publication (more or less): February 2, 1998

Is Matt Drudge the new Tom Paine?

I'm not talking about the feeding frenzy of reporters from every network and major paper. They've been doing that since Watergate. What has changed is that, starting now, a major story can be instigated by a single unaffiliated person. Not Monica Lewinsky. I'm talking about Internet columnist Matt Drudge.

You probably know the name. I used it in this space last summer, when I noticed Drudge's website, The Drudge Report, was the most popular media site tracked by one of the leading Internet statistics groups. I had no idea who he was, but thought his name was perfect in a Dickensian sort of way, an amalgam of doormat and drudgery. He sounded like the embodiment of the ink-stained wretch all writers see themselves as, and are.

Drudge got his start working at the CBS gift shop in Burbank. When he overheard a juicy tidbit or found one in the trash, he put it up on the Net. Thus are legends born.

At 31, Drudge, is now well known to the establishment. A kind of latter-day Walter Winchell, Drudge has been carving out a beat for himself spanning Hollywood (where he operates from) and the Washington Beltway. Though nominally a right-winger, Drudge is less interested in issues than celebrity. He talks about government bigwigs the same breathy way he talks about Tom Cruise and Madonna.

Despite his tabloid orientation and his bare-bones, one-man operation, he has uncovered great stories that established news organizations have passed on. It was Drudge who ran the news item that Newsweek was sitting on the Lewinsky story. He has been called rash and irresponsible (the White House calls him simply "that source," the one they will not dignify by naming), but more often than not his reports have been right.

And he has readers. Last summer his site was attracting 15,000 visitors a day. Besides highlighting his most recent column, he offered a tip box people could blurt scoops into. Readers liked the simplicity and speed. Its graphics-free, one-page menu contained hotlinks to all the major news services, from ABC to UPI, and to select columnists, from the glitzy (Army Archerd of Variety) to the gray (George Will of the Washington Post). Hundreds of gossip-hungry Net users used his site as their home pages.

Six months later, those hundreds have swelled to thousands. Last week, amid the Lewinsky revelations, he was drawing 250,000 hits a day. Most of the time, the site has been just too busy to access. Talk about the world beating a path to your door.

As a one-man news-gathering organization, Drudge reminds me of Al Franken, who did that self-contained, one-man satellite uplink news skit on Saturday Night Live some years ago, videotaping himself with one hand and transmitting through a radio dish mounted on his head. He was a complete TV network news operation, able to do just about anything except fend off a pack of wolves at Lillehammer.

The Net works better than that. Drudge can post a bulletin at any hour of the day or skip a week if news is slow or he has a cold. He has terrific flexibility and no costs to speak of. His only limits are his energy and his nerve.

But I have two questions for Matt Drudge. First, what does he want exactly? Putting up a news column does not bring in any money, and his kind of down and dirty news tends to invite expensive lawsuits. Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal, just as an example, is suing him for $30 million for an item accusing Blumenthal of spousal abuse.

My guess is that Drudge is after fame and fun, and not necessarily in that order. The money, barring the revelation that Bill Clinton is a practicing cenobite, will presumably follow.

The other question is, is it good that there is a Matt Drudge? It's great to have news sources that isn't filtered through the establishment mindset, whether at Newsweek or ABC News. Viva the free exchange of ideas.

But sometimes, as when global stability is at stake, you wish for just the teeniest amount of due diligence and accountability. Our founding fathers never foresaw an Internet on which yeoman, independent journalists could set up shop and peddle government-toppling tips. (Although, they did have Tom Paine to deal with. Tom Paine, Matt Drudge -- hmm.)

But this is how our networked world will be. Chip speed and broad bandwidth translate to tremendous social volatility. Clinton won't have a year to flounder, the way Nixon did. The minute-to-minute responsiveness that the Net allows means our leaders may be ousted in a weekend. Elections, spaced two and four and size years apart, will no longer seem adequate to subdue citizen passions.

What is missing from all this acceleration is time to consider. In years to come we will need pre-Internet graybeards like George Will and Daniel Schorr to slow down the storm and find clarity amid the fury. But what we're going to get is Matt Drudge.

America's Best-Loved Technology Writer(TM), Michael Finley has a free gift for visitors to http://mfinley.com.

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