There's an excellent, rare TV interview from Sky in Britain with Matt Drudge of the popular online news site "Drudge Report."
Drudge talks about the growing importance of the Internet in the coverage of news; especially news the mainstream media in a number of cases attempts to "spike." Spike refers to not reporting the story.
Speaking of the Clinton scandal with Monica Lewinsky, Drudge gave the reason he broke the story:
"I had to break it because other people wouldn't. If we are faced with corporations who don't want to report real news the internet will play a very valuable role in the underground, catching real stories that are being spiked."
When Drudge was pressed by Sky's Anna Botting on how the Internet can be trusted, he said that any media outlet or platform has the same problems, and it isn't limited to the Internet in any way.
He added that just because a medium has been around for some time doesn't mean that what they report is true.
His way of dealing with the plethora of sources and information is to read a number of different publications so he gets an overall view of the issue he's reading about. He feels that's a way to safely consume media and get an accurate picture of what's really happening.
The conclusion of Drudge is that everyone needs to "set your own threshold in what you believe."
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