"The World is his Laptop" ... and his laptop is his muse

Times Online interviews the enigmatic Matt Drudge: What would be the perfect Drudge story? “An earthquake hitting a hospital with Bill Clinton having surgery and President Bush in the waiting room and an asteroid coming its way.” He laughs. Apparently, Drudge is just what we imagined; an obsessive loner who spends a little too much time in front of the computer: As the city sleeps Drudge works late, tracking down stories, searching dozens of news agencies, web-sites, newspapers, radio broadcasts, television channels and tip-offs in the hope that he will be the first to bag tomorrow’s headlines. “I was first to break the news about the death of Lady Diana,” he boasts. “The CNN team couldn’t get into make-up fast enough.” It is a gruelling schedule. “Yesterday I spent 13 hours in my hotel room looking for news. I’ve done seven hours already and will do another seven tonight.” For Drudge, news is not a job — it’s love. And, as we've also previously guessed, he's very egotistical: Back in the 1990s Drudge was a believer in the empowering potential of the internet. In a speech he said, “We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be.” Now he sounds disillusioned and says that the “din” is growing into a cacophony: “There’s a danger of the internet just becoming loud, ugly and boring with a thousand voices screaming for attention.” He is no fan of the blogging phenomenon (weblogs linking sites): “I don’t read them. I like to create waves and not surf them. And who are these influential bloggers? You can’t name one because they don’t exist.” Matt Drudge: obnoxious, obsessed, and oblivious.