Matt Drudge: America's Most Influential Political "Reporter"

Matt Drudge started his reporting career when his father, worried about his future, gave him a computer in 1994. Focusing on gossip, snippets from newspapers and talk radio, and even entertainment news found in garbage cans around CBS studios, where he worked in a gift shop, Drudge started an internet newsletter and gained a lot of loyal readers. Years later after he created The Drudge Report, Drudge built a solid following by attracting readers to his blog with "exclusive" breaking news stories. By the time he "broke" the Monica Lewinsky scandal, The Drudge Report already had 80,000 daily visitors.

After the Lewinsky scandal report gave him muckraker status, Drudge's popularity skyrocketed. Looking at The Drudge report, it's hard to believe that it's the site that attracts millions of people's attention every day and is a major force in news media and political campaigns. The site itself is a throwback to the primitive website designs of the early Internet, which is fitting because Drudge is one of the first people to take advantage of the equalizing power of the Internet. He is quoted as saying "we are all newsmen now" and he went and proved it, becoming the first "blogstar" (this is a word coined by yours truly). Rising from obscurity to being a major media player, Matt Drudge is the embodiment of new media's influence in politics.

If the Drudge Report homepage links to a news or gossip article, the story is practically guaranteed a million page views. This power of deciding what to show to the millions of everyday Drudge Report viewers-in other words, deciding what is news--is where Drudge's power lies. And it's the very reason why politicians coddle Matt Drudge and try desperately to maintain good relations with him, feeding him newsworthy items and insider knowledge, which gives him even more power in shaping the political environment. He only gets stronger as this cycle continues to play out. Politicians actually have intermediaries who deal specifically with Drudge in attempts to control, or at least have some input on the stories that Drudge links to or places on his site regarding their clients.

The right-leaning conservative Drudge has taken a liking to (or at least an interest in) Democrat presidential front-runner Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. As Jim Rutenberg writes in a New York Times article, "Clinton finds a way to play along" with Matt Drudge. Since The Drudge Report is the homepage of every reporter (including cable talking heads) and political aide in the country, what Drudge decides to link to and what he decides not to link to help shape the political environment on a daily basis.

Never has the fight been more intense for ownership of the news cycle. According to the article in the Times, the Clinton campaign tipped the Drudge report to its fund-raising numbers (which showed that Clinton had raised more money than Barack Obama--$27 million to be exact) before the news was released to the public and just before Barack Obama gave a major speech about Iraq. In other words, the article suggests, politicians are learning to play nice with Mr. Drudge. Even Democrats. But would you ever put this past the politically savvy Mrs. Clinton? No. It's a new game. Clinton's staff seems to have learned to rules. One of which is, if you can't kill a story, you can at least mitigate its effect.

This potentially self-serving favor is common in the competitive media biz, and this is nothing new for any politician in this technocratic age worth his or her salt. The campaign of George W. Bush rewrote all the rules on how to win an election and was the first to really utilize The Drudge Report by maintaining relations with him, feeding him stories and embarrassing tidbits (which other serious news organizations wouldn't air) about Senator John Kerry.

The Drudge report is a mix of news, gossip, and offbeat stories. It is truly incredible how one site has become such a powerhouse with the ability to shape what people in the political world pay attention to and consider "news."

Some say The Drudge Report's popularity comes from Drudge's ability to pinpoint the most important aspect of a story, that is, the story between the lines, while others say it's because he gets noteworthy, timely scoops. Still, others say he is a right-wing hatchet man whose popularity and importance is a mystery. Either way, he got the power, which is the influence, the visitors to his website who trust him to give them the most important news, which creates an environment where what he prints becomes the most important news of the day. It will be interesting to see how long The Drudge Report stays relevant.

As long as it does stay relevant in the political media realm, what Matt Drudge says goes. Or I should say, what Matt Drudge links to goes.