IT LOOKS LIKE THE NYTIMES IS EXPRESSING ITS FEAR THAT INTERNET REPORTERS LIKE MATT MAY USURP THEIR LOFTY ENVIRONS.

TO VIEW THIS ARTICLE GO TO MATT'S PAGE WWW.DRUDGEREPORT.COM

SCROLL DOWN THE LEFT HAND COLUMNS UNTIL YOU COME TO THE LINK FOR NYTIMES

UNFORTUNATELY, YOU WILL HAVE TO JOIN THEIR NYTIMES CLUB TO BE ABLE TO VIEW THIS.

December 4, 1999 JOURNAL / By FRANK RICH The Strange Legacy of Matt Drudge -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related Articles Op-Ed Columns Archive Forum

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In a move that would have incited headlines less than two years ago but barely rated column items two weeks ago, Fox News Channel ended the brief TV career of the first New Media journalistic superstar, Matt Drudge, by "mutual consent." Attention should be paid to this cautionary tale, and not for the reasons you might expect.

As those whose memories haven't entirely purged Monicagate will recall, Mr. Drudge is the fedora-wearing grandstander whom many, I included, once feared as the Devil of journalism incarnate. He published malicious rumors as fact and, with the new-fangled speed of the Internet at his back, browbeat some insecure Old Media news organizations into repeating them. He hijacked scoops from other reporters. He boasted about his lack of education and his contempt for professional standards. So what if he got some stories wrong, prompting a major defamation suit? He got some big ones -- including The Dress -- right. Likening himself to John Peter Zenger while addressing the cowed mainstream media at the National Press Club, he spoke of how the Internet was "going to save the news business" because "every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be."

Those were fighting words, though they're all but forgotten now, a mere 18 months later. Mr. Drudge's most cherished post-Monica scoop, an alleged Bill Clinton love child, defied his strenuous efforts to make it fly, and drudgereport.com itself now is swamped by other Web sites of partisan gossip and standard news links (witness lucianne.com). When Fox yanked Mr. Drudge's weekly show, he cried censorship (of a fetal photo), but since when does a Rupert Murdoch enterprise muzzle right-wing ideologues? There was no public outcry supporting the defanged Drudge because not enough people cared. Ratings for his show had already fallen by 30 percent. According to Media Metrix, which monitors Web traffic, the Drudge site, which ranked 228 at the time of his Press Club speech, is now at 636.

Journalistic watchdogs should be overjoyed at their nemesis' ignominious exit from the tube. We should be thrilled that he no longer has the power to terrorize the nation's news cycles with his apocalyptic bulletins. But the decline in Mr. Drudge's stature is in some ways a barometer of permanent changes in the media culture that may make us look back on his brief reign as national press mascot as a relatively innocent time. Mr. Drudge was in power long enough to change the mainstream press for keeps -- and not for the better. But some of his downfall is due to rapid changes in the press that he didn't see coming, that affect all journalists and news consumers -- and of which he is as much an impotent victim as the rest of us.

How he changed the press is self-evident. The elevation of rumor(RUMOR MILL NEWS? ADDED BY 002) and gossip to news is now ubiquitous in mainstream media; few except professional worrywarts bother to complain any more. No Internet impetus is needed when both TV and print routinely recycle intimations of alleged drug use by George W. Bush without any sourcing (or accusers), and embroider any gun massacre (workplace or school) or celebrity death (such as John Kennedy Jr.'s) with spectacularly entertaining theories before there are facts. We're so inured to speculation in the name of news that it's become a constant white noise. No Matt Drudge, however incendiary his or her own "scoops" may be, could possibly shout loudly enough to be heard over the now-permanent din.

But what also hit Mr. Drudge is the historic sea change he thought he could buck: the continued consolidation of news into a handful of huge conglomerates. Whatever errors he made in his Washington coverage, they were nothing compared with his wildly mistaken conviction that any citizen can be a reporter in the new democratic era of the Internet. Even during the short time since Mr. Drudge arrived on the scene, the consolidation of the news business has accelerated (witness the marriage of CBS and Viacom), and the Internet, like every other medium from magazines to broadcast networks, is being annexed too.

The Web's most heavily visited news-and-information site is MSNBC. It is not only a consortium of two of the world's largest corporations, Microsoft and General Electric, but it's still growing: it just sealed a major new partnership with The Washington Post and Newsweek (replacing a far less extensive MSNBC alliance with The Times). On the Web, as in other media, MSNBC's closest competitors are such fellow behemoths as Time Warner (CNN) and Disney (ABC, ESPN), and, to a lesser degree, the major national newspapers. Though there are plenty of Drudge wannabes on the Internet gassing on many subjects, people turn to the Big Boys, not amateur citizen reporters, for news. The liveliest independent journalism sites spawned by the Web, such as Salon and Feed, are not so much primary news sources as havens for sharp commentary and analysis, like print magazines such as The New Yorker or Harper's.

The good news about giant corporations owning most major news operations, whatever the medium, is their resources. If they choose -- and this is a big if in some cases -- they can bankroll the journalistic talent, depth and enterprise to cover non-tabloid stories from Kosovo to Pluto. This is why consumers turn to them, after all, and why their brands mean something. The bad news is that they leave little oxygen for the maverick, independent journalist who really might use the freedom Mr. Drudge talked about to challenge the powers that be. Worse still is the potential for conflicts of interest -- through sins of omission, commission or synergy. Should G.E., Microsoft, Viacom or the rest suppress stories that affect their multitudinous businesses, our press is free in name only. Should such corporations pimp for their own products under the guise of "news," it's not journalism -- it's advertising.

How can we tell when these giants are up to no good? We're on our own. Sure, there are press critics calling attention to some of these transgressions, but the circulation of journalism reviews, from Brill's to Columbia's, is modest. Even "The Insider" -- a star-laden, enthusiastically reviewed, widely publicized Hollywood account of the "60 Minutes" capitulation to Big Tobacco -- has failed to catch on. One ominous explanation was offered by a studio executive to Bernard Weinraub of The Times this week: "The fact is, most people . . . assume that the media is corrupted by big business."

Do these same people assume that media critics are corrupted? I asked Howard Kurtz, who covers the press for both The Washington Post and CNN, how the public can judge his work given that he is in some way affiliated, thanks to the octopus-like entanglements of his employers, with seemingly half the media outlets he must critique. After noting that he was "uncomfortable" with the new Post-MSNBC alliance because "it adds to the perception there are a lot of big corporations in bed together," Mr. Kurtz vowed: "I'm going to be just as tough on NBC and MSNBC as I've ever been. But I don't blame folks for being skeptical. . . . We're talking about a profession that many people already view with disdain."

Short of unlikely government antitrust measures, it may be left to market forces to police the press in our new jungle of conglomerate journalism -- for money talks louder to corporations than even the most articulate press critic. However disdainful Americans may currently be of big media, they still consume the products and vote daily with their remotes, mouse clicks or subscription payments. Watching ABC News's "This Week" panelists enthuse over "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" a couple of Sundays ago -- with nary a mention that it helps pay their salaries -- I wondered if it was inane Disney cheerleading like this that in part has driven audiences (and newsmakers like George W. Bush, who favored NBC's Tim Russert that morning) to competitors.

Conversely, the Web magazine Slate may gain readers' loyalty with its not-in-the-tank coverage of its parent company, Microsoft.

Long before his recent travails, Mr. Drudge predicted, "Eventually they'll all throw me back in [the Internet] after they chew me and spit me out." He called that one right at least, and his departure from Fox is nothing if not a particularly ruthless example of the market at work.

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