Breitbart.com

Three years before Matt Drudge changed the world and how news would be consumed, President Bill Clinton’s White House feared that the Internet was allowing average citizens, especially conservatives, to bypass legacy gatekeepers and access information that had previously been denied to them by the mainstream press.

The infamous 1995 “conspiracy commerce memo” tried to demonize and discredit alternative media outlets on the right to mainstream media organizations and D.C. establishment figures. The memo notes that the “Internet has become one of the major and most dynamic modes of communication” and “can link people, groups and organizations together instantly.” …

The memo talks about the media frenzy, the blow back strategy, and slams outlets unfavorable to the Clinton White House as “sources without credibility” before calling Richard Mellon Scaife the “vanguard” of the conspiracy movement that spread stories and “theories” about Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, and Vince Foster. …

Drudge forever changed journalism in January of 1998 when he reported that Bill Clinton had a sexual relationship with a White House intern and that Newsweek killed the story to protect its ally in the White House.

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  LIFE, The Clinton White House saw the Internet threat long before that Drudge scoop, WorldTribune