Hotter Than Hot A One-Man Wire Service, Matt Drudge Reports Breaking News, Gossip And Politics Online

Matt Drudge turns a call from a reporter into a battle of dueling keystrokes, betting he can find news of a 30-minute old earthquake in Alaska before his inquisitor.

He came in second, by about 10 seconds, but with the same report. As the story had only hit the Alaska state broadcast wire, it’s clear that Drudge’s sources - and access to confidential passwords - are excellent.

As is his timing.

The Drudge Report, the daily barrage of breaking news, gossip and politics he e-mails to some 65,000 subscribers in Uzi-like bursts, is hotter than hot. He’s getting quoted in newspapers, interviewed on C-Span (a New Year’s resolution, making the taping particularly sweet) and just signed on as a columnist at America Online.

As his own one-man wire service, Drudge, 30, has created a product that’s brought the world to his door. It’s required reading for those inside media, politics and showbiz, and the tips he gets strike fear into the heart of Hollywood - mere blocks from his world headquarters and apartment near Hollywood and Vine.

Question: How’d you get your start?

Drudge: I was working in the gift shop at CBS selling T-shirts. I started hearing bits and pieces of juicy, juicy gossip from the sound stage people. Things like Seinfeld was clearing out his desk (in a bid) to get more money, or Cybill Shepherd saying she’d only work with women. I’d post them on Internet news groups … and one day out of the blue I got a note from a guy saying, ‘Add me to your list.’ So I started one. That was February of 1995.

Q: How’d you learn to be a journalist?

Drudge: I’m not formally trained as (a) journalist. I didn’t go to college, barely got out of high school. I’m a self-educated writer, and the Web taught me. I’ve learned everything I know about news and writing from the Internet.

Q: Why the Internet? Why not a job at a newspaper?

Drudge: It’s where the action is. … It’s a direct communication with the reader when you want to, not when they want to. When you can knock on their door and say, ‘This just in!’; it’s a really intimate thing. … I don’t think what I do could be done in print. The sooner you read e-mail, the better it is. Time magazine was right when they called me “the king of junk-food media.” It doesn’t taste good two or three hours afterwards. But it’s good when it’s hot.

Q: Why do people tip you?

Drudge: It’s unexplainable. Why does anybody give anybody information? They want to get back at somebody or embarrass somebody. I get a lot of stuff from TV network employees who hate where they work. I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of stringers; they’re from all over. If a tornado touches down in Miami, I get e-mail.

Q: What’s the one thing you run that most infuriates people?

Drudge: The box-office numbers. I’m causing a lot of commotion here by issuing box-office numbers smuggled out of the studios. The media release them Sunday at two in the afternoon and I think the studios like that. They don’t want people to know Saturday morning that “Speed 2” isn’t working when they’ve spent so much money trying to convince them it is. It’s an absolute exclusive every week.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Web connection You can check out the Drudge Report on the Web at www.drudgereport.com