There Goes the Drudge

Turns out there are still some things you just can't get away with. Conservative cyberjournalist Matt Drudge found that out Thursday when Fox canceled his weekly political gossip show. The problems began when the channel's executives wouldn't allow him to show a photo of a fetus receiving surgery. Drudge says the graphic photo was meant to buttress his pro-life stance, but the channel heads felt it was being used out of context. When Drudge missed his show in protest, he was handed his walking papers.

The blowup reflects a still-wide chasm between online and broadcast journalism. "This is a journalist who was born on the Web and is used to infusing his reports with his own beliefs," says TIME Digital editor Joshua Quittner. "While that's useful on the Internet, where we gravitate to those who are politically opinionated and even sensationalist, people like Drudge have a harder time surviving in the more limited realm of mass media." So Drudge, who harnessed a new medium to climb from gift shop clerk to columnist read by millions in a matter of years, retreats to the Web. There he has final edit on his Drudge Report site, the only criticisms come via e-mail, and "delete" is just a keystroke away.