NEWSWEEK KILLS STORY ON WHITE HOUSE INTERN:
23-YEAR OLD, SEX RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESIDENT
**World Exclusive**
**Must Credit the DRUDGE REPORT**
At the last minute, at 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, NEWSWEEK magazine killed a story that was destined to shake official Washington to its foundation: A White House intern carried on a sexual affair with the President of the United States!
These words, posted early Sunday morning, Jan. 18, on the personal Web site of a man named Matt Drudge, began the lurid multimedia frenzy engulfing the United States today.
Welcome to journalism in the Internet Age: an age when a 30- year-old former CBS gift-shop clerk like Drudge, armed with a computer and a modem, can wield nearly as much power as a network executive producer or the editor of The New York Times.
The Drudge Report, a mix of gossip, politics, rumor and news, has been attracting attention in cyberspace for a couple of years now. Some 60,000 subscribers receive Drudge's daily bulletins and "flash" reports; tens of thousands more read them on his Web site. Using a network of tipsters and "borrowed" passwords to the internal computer systems of media powerhouses, Drudge has managed to scoop the media establishment on a number of stories, including the selection of Jack Kemp as Bob Dole's vice presidential running mate and Connie Chung's dismissal by CBS.
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