NEW ORLEANS -- Internet journalism isn't bringing about anarchy, it's helping prevent it, according to bombastic journalist Matt Drudge, whose most famous scoop made Monica Lewinsky -- and Matt Drudge -- a household name.
Drudge delivered the keynote address Friday at the annual Gavin Seminar here, the largest radio and record industry convention of the year. He told the crowd that the individuality the Internet encourages is the perfect and necessary antidote to the corporatization of mass media. Drudge, never one to hold back his opinions, also warned music executives that their own industry is in danger from the same homogenization that has afflicted the mainstream media.
"There is a dramatic change going on: Individuals are taking over just when it seemed like corporations were going to own everything," Drudge said.
The 32-year-old former CBS gift-shop employee claims his Drudge Report is read by more people every day than The Washington Post, the perfect example of how one person can make a huge impact, even in the age of media consolidation. Drudge said he still files his report from his small Hollywood apartment, with nothing to help him but his nose for news and "a US$19.99-a-month Internet connection."
Drudge, using his signature logic, downplayed the view of the Net as rumor mill. "The whole notion that the Internet is causing this gossip revolution is faulty. The Internet prevents anarchy because it is holding those in power, including the media, accountable," he said.
Many critics, however, believe Drudge himself needs to be more accountable. In the short time he has been in the limelight for breaking the Lewinsky story, Drudge has cemented his reputation as a rogue who rushes into stories where the more traditional media fear to tread. Drudge was roundly criticized for running a story about a crack addict who claimed that President Clinton was the father of her child. The claim proved to be false. The day before his address, Drudge posted a story about an Arkansas woman who claims Clinton raped her, a story Drudge said was suppressed by NBC News.
In his keynote, Drudge made no apologies for his take-no-prisoners approach. "I'm a prosecutor," he said. "I go wherever the action is, and there has been a hell of a lot of action in this White House.
"The future is dramatic like that. It's a place where someone like me who was folding T-shirts in a gift shop could be updating a Web site that, because of these little fingers hitting this silly keypad, the president of the United States is going to read."
Drudge asserted that his most virulent critics have a great stake in the status quo. "If in the future there are hundreds of millions of reporters out there, why then do I need Dan Rather to put his makeup on to deliver the news?"
Drudge offered advice to music executives who are understandably anxious about how to deal with new technologies like MP3 and Internet radio and want to compete in the marketplace developing around them. He urged them to stop focusing on the Internet as solely another tool of commerce and focus instead on its creative potential.
"Don't try to make money," he said. "I'm sure in the early days of radio, they weren't looking to cash out right away. Let's not rush so fast to bastardize this thing, and let's enjoy the innocence of it while we have it."
By the end of his address, Drudge seemed to have won over a reluctant audience. "He's pretty sensationalistic, but I like his concern for checking his sources," said Bill Evans, music director at San Francisco's KFOG FM. "I think he wouldn't be very happy at the networks, but the networks would be better off with more people like him."
Kay McCarthy of DreamWorks Records was less impressed. "I think he's soulless. Digging up stuff just for the sake of digging it up is not necessarily a good thing. He doesn't think or care about the people he hurts."
