TheStandard.com
Traffic's Up at Site That Slammed Jeb

By James Ledbetter - European Executive Editor

Earlier this week, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took the unusual step of calling a press conference to deny that he had been romantically involved with a woman in his administration. Bush felt compelled to do this because rumors of an affair had gurgled up to the point where they could no longer be ignored. Perhaps the most complete and damning information about the rumor came from a little-known Web site called Media Whores Online. Although the European media has credited MWO with publishing the Bush report, the site actually stopped short of doing so. Instead, it hints at the story without ever directly saying that an affair had taken place. Instead, MWO details the "favoritism" that Bush has shown toward Cynthia Henderson, who heads the state's Department of Management Services.

Unlike at the Net's most notorious gossip site, the Drudge Report, the people behind MWO are anonymous. Most of the original material on MWO is unsigned, and its "Contact us" link gives no list of editorial staff or telephone number. This leaves the site's readers somewhat mystified about who, for example, has compiled the site's list of "Top Ten Whores" in the press. (NBC's Tim Russert is ranked No. 1.)

Despite the official anonymity, a woman calling herself Jennifer Kelly answered The Standard's e-mailed questions about the site. She wrote that the site launched last fall, took a hiatus and then began publishing again. MWO's goal, Kelly said, is "to help drive down the credibility of the right-wing 'mainstream' media in the public mind to a level commensurate with the credibility it deserves." Kelly allowed that the site is run out of Florida but declined to be more specific.

MWO takes the perspective that the mainstream media published all sorts of dirt about Bill Clinton -- whom Kelly calls "the best president of our lifetime" -- but engages in "slavish bootlicking" toward the Bush White House. Among MWO's regular targets are New York Daily News columnist Mike Barnicle (whose career has been plagued by multiple accusations of plagiarism), Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens and the Rupert Murdoch-controlled Fox network, which MWO calls the "Faux" network.

Kelly says the site gets between 30,000 and 40,000 hits a day and that its traffic spiked 30 percent this week because of its coverage of Jeb Bush.

Kelly insists she's not in it for money. "It's a passionate form of activism," she says. "We receive offers for contributions and sponsorship but decline them."

Of course, Matt Drudge said the same thing prior to January of 1999. These days, his site brings in an estimated six figures annually.

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