Whatever his mistakes and excesses, Drudge was the first entrepreneur to exploit the Internet's speed in ways we now take for granted. During a phone conversation last week from London, he suddenly realized something was happening in Rome, and within seconds a red siren and headline appeared: "Bells Ringing Signaling Election of a Pope." This was followed moments later by "Ratzinger," then "Benedict," and later a shot of the tabloid headline in Britain's Sun: "From Hitler Youth to . . . PAPA RATZI."
Starting with an e-mailed newsletter in 1995, when he lived in a one-bedroom Hollywood apartment, Drudge rode his Monica-induced fame to a Fox News Channel show (which he later quit) and a weekly radio show (still on nearly 300 stations). And while his lifestyle has changed (he lives in what he calls a Miami Beach "mansion"), his loner status has not.
"I'm in my own little world," Drudge says. He doesn't own a cell phone, doing his reporting by e-mail and instant messaging. And he deflects questions about his personal life, though he told London's Sunday Times he's not gay and once almost got married. "I don't feel like volunteering anything," he says.
Nielsen Net Ratings says his site, which attracts corporate advertisers, draws 3 million unique visitors a month, and Drudge says he had 247 million page views in March. Drudge's biggest traffic day followed Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction. "Why? Because I showed the boob, breaking through the PC crowd," he says.
If Drudge is doing less original writing, as he admits, and news outlets are spoon-feeding him advances, is he just another cog in the publicity machine? "Yeah, I'm being used, for a buzz-hype agenda," he says. "Do I feel like I'm being co-opted? I still decide whether to run it."
What Drudge provides, by constantly trolling for tidbits and titillation, is one man's idiosyncratic take on the news, feverishly updated so that people keep clicking back. "There so much freaking information out there," he says. "There's clutter danger, no doubt about it." He says he's not bored but understands he's no longer a novelty.
"At some point you still become old. People may grow tired of the Drudge sensibility."
Footnote : Drudge later zinged Time by quoting his friend Coulter as saying her cover photo -- in which her legs took up half the page -- was distorted. But Executive Editor Priscilla Painton says Coulter went through the photographer's portfolio in advance: "She has great looks. She has great legs. She has great ankles. All of that was on full display on the cover. Lots of women would kill for that kind of display."
Albom's Return
The Detroit Free Press has decided to allow star sportswriter Mitch Albom to resume his column after taking disciplinary action against him and four others.
Albom was suspended after writing about a Final Four basketball game before it happened, which produced a torrent of negative publicity when two players whom Albom reported were at the game did not show up. Albom apologized and the Free Press launched an investigation.
The paper did not name the staffers involved or describe what punishment they or Albom received. Albom's critics predicted he would get off easy because he is a best-selling author, radio host and ESPN commentator -- Publisher Carole Leigh Hutton killed a negative review of Albom's latest book in 2003 -- while others said the case would have drawn little attention if not for Albom's fame.
In a letter to readers, Hutton said: "We took into account many factors, including the seriousness of the offense, the importance of our credibility, the history of those involved and Albom's 20 stellar years at the Free Press."
Firing Offense?
Eric Slater, who was canned by the Los Angeles Times last week over a badly botched assignment, is the first to admit he was guilty of "sloppy reporting. . . . It was the worst story I've written in my life."
But he says the punishment was too harsh and there was no way he made anything up. "I believe the L.A. Times thought I was Jayson Blair," Slater says, referring to the serial fabricator at the New York Times.
In a March 29 piece on fraternity hazing at California State University, Chico, Slater said a pledge at a nearby college died of alcohol poisoning; he did not die but was hospitalized. Slater got Chico's population wrong and quoted the university president, although Slater did not speak to him and was citing previously published interviews.
In dismissing the 11-year veteran, the Times said an editor had gone to Chico and concluded that "the quotations from anonymous sources and from two named sources, a Mike Rodriguez and a Paul Greene, could not be verified."
"I got lazy," Slater says, adding that he conducted the interviews in bars and did not have phone numbers for Rodriguez and Greene. He says he could not prove he was in Chico because he slept 30 miles away on a side trip to pick up a BMW motorcycle. He also says the story "morphed, evolved and devolved" during a torturous editing process but that he takes "full responsibility" for the mistakes.
"Should I have been reprimanded or demoted? Yes," says Slater, who won an award for his coverage of Afghanistan. But he argued the mistakes "didn't warrant my dismissal."
