How quickly can a scandal spread? Well, with the Internet it can spread like wildfire. Matt Drudge of “The Drudge Report” heard about an affair between President Bill Clinton and an intern, Monica Lewinski while Clinton was in administration. The story was then leaked to NewsWeek but it was declined. Matt Drudge took this and ran- quickly.

He decided that all it takes to curate news was one man and a blog which gave him unlimited access to the public. He wanted some honesty in the media since that’s all anyone really wants in today’s world. This was the start of citizen journalism and it was all run by a single person. The Drudge Report is still around today and booming with internet hits. Matt Drudge views his site as a “international clearing ground of news” because it pushes the boundaries of what can be exposed- everything.

His site started a Canadian site called “The Little Report” which is advertised as a Canadian version of Drudge’s American site. Some are critical of the highly opinionated headings. Christian News Today says that “you’re being manipulated” by the news. In fact, the heading of their piece is “The Drudge Distort“. Headings play a very important role in Matt Drudge’s site because they intrigue people to click on them which brings them to a larger article.

The design of the site plays a large part in it’s popularity because it is fairly basic and not in-your-face flashy. Sites such as WordPress follow a similar format which is appealing to the viewers and appears less like it has been made by a corporation.

The Internet is instantaneous and allows people who used to be separated by geographical boundaries to access the same content and converse with others around the world.

Matt Drudge used a controversial topic to jump start his reporting and journalistic career as a one man blog. Though his blog is heavily opinionated by him, it attracts over two million page hits per day! Drudge is considered as a big player in the development of citizen journalism and aggregation sites.