COLUMN: The whole story - and fast

From Michael Mugmon's, "The way it is," Fall '98 From Michael Mugmon's, "The way it is," Fall '98In these times of gross media arrogance and criticism, only one man takes more heat from editors and columnists than President Clinton. What's worse is that, unlike President Clinton and unlike this summer's host of media transgressors, Matt Drudge doesn't deserve the constant verbal pummeling he receives. Matt Drudge, of course, is the 31-year-old cyber-journalist who publishes The Drudge Report -- a World Wide Web site that dishes information and rumors, truth and allegations, on anything from the weekend's box-office numbers to former White House intern Monica Lewinsky's scandalous grand jury testimony. Not only was Drudge the first to break the news about Clinton's affair with Lewinsky in January (after Newsweek editors decided to spike reporter Michael Isikoff's account at the last moment), but he's also scooped the national mainstream press on a number of occasions -- including scoring the news that Bob Dole tapped Jack Kemp as his running mate in the 1996 presidential race. Although Drudge earns far more notoriety for the scandal-sheet nature of his site, The Drudge Report (http://www.drudgereport.com) is essentially a repository of links -- a fact pointed out quite pejoratively by Linton Weeks of The Washington Post in his column, "The Navigator." Weeks completely fails to realize that this reason in itself makes The Drudge Report significant. Where else can a news-hungry soul turn for such diverse and filling info-nourishment? Starting from Drudge's site, a Web surfer can gain access to up-to-the-minute wire services, columns by pundits ranging from George Will to to David Broder to Dick Morris, as well as virtually every prominent magazine and newspaper in the world. Basically, if you visit Drudge's site, you'll find yourself awash in news and views when you want them -- a situation that deathly frightens the national mainstream media. Until just several years ago, the cliquish national media held a veritable monopoly on information and on its transmission. Unless you were the newsmaker or the reporter, you didn't get the news until the press wanted you to get the news. When the Internet burst onto the scene, everything changed. Information could pass from one person to another in a matter of seconds, and gossip and facts intermingled in a chaotic swirl of Web sites, newsgroup postings and e-mail messages. Among the Big Three networks, NBC tried hardest to keep up with the deluge of accessible information, creating a host of cable networks and joining hands with computing giant Microsoft on MSNBC. With an outstanding mainstream Web site and raw video feeds from everywhere imaginable, Ted Turner's CNN appeared fairly well-equipped to afford the world much-needed access to timely information. And, quite honestly, even after the embarrassment caused by the retraction of a story on the purported use of nerve gas by U.S. troops during the Vietnam War, CNN performs fairly well. Newspapers and magazines ventured online as well, but all provide a somewhat limited perspective. The point here is that neither MSNBC, CNN, nor any other organization used their tools adequately enough to offer up the whole story. And why would they? A select few still controlled precious access, with the only difference being that the information was scattered into more pockets across television, radio, print journalism and the Web. Enter Drudge. Working from his Los Angeles apartment, the Walter Winchell-wannabe made some sense of the mess. Drudge nearly equaled the fiberoptic speed of the Internet, delivering easy access not only to breaking news and a wide assortment of opinions, but also publishing exclusive scoops and his own field reports. Admittedly, Drudge's lightning pace makes him vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that while he gets the story first, he might not always get it right. White House aide Sidney Blumenthal even smacked Drudge with a $30 million libel suit. Drudge, however, retracted the story as soon as he discovered that the allegations against Blumenthal were false -- an act of contrition that mainstream media organizations rarely make, and never so quickly. What's more is that after this summer's barrage of mainstream media wrongdoings, hardly anyone has the right to be so utterly hypocritical as to castigate Drudge while blindly defending the establishment. The fact is that Matt Drudge does what the mainstream media don't. That's why they're jealous of him. And that's why the world needs a guy like Drudge -- to sift through the mayhem and manage the flood of news. If the mainstream media want to get rid of Drudge, reporters and editors need to beat him at his own game and simply be better journalists. They need to work with changing technologies to give the public the most access instead of trying to vilify the one who's doing their work for them. And until the mainstream media get their act together, I'll continue to visit one of the best sites on the Internet -- Matt Drudge's The Drudge Report.