The new media rose up precisely because the old media failed to tell the truth. That very first new media breakthrough was about 15 years ago when this lowly little store clerk in a lowly little apartment equipped with his computer and a modem broke one of the biggest stories of the decade. His name was Matt Drudge and the rest is history. And in hindsight, we see that the story he broke was more than just a president having an affair. To me it was much, much more than that. It was about a major old media publication that had spiked the story eleven times. And they knew all about it. Eleven times! Not just once to check their facts. Not twice just to double-check. Eleven times they spiked the story. Why? Because as charter members of that Democrat Media Complex they were protecting their guy. So, when a fellow with a modem and a website found out about this, he decided to tell the truth they refused to tell. And oh how that old media cried foul and they howled. They denounced Drudge as irresponsible and unprofessional and even dangerous and anti-everything from motherhood to apple pie. How dare that nobody from nowhere without a degree or a pedigree try to influence the national discourse. But the real reason they feared him was because he wasn’t beholden to the old media’s machine and the Thought Police. Unshackled, he was free. And a few months later, Drudge got to speak at the National Press Club in DC. He predicted the future in his speech there. 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….I envision a future where there’ll be 300 million reporters, where anyone from anywhere can report for any reason. It’s freedom of participation absolutely realized.” Thus the birth of citizen journalism, and you are the future he predicted!

Palin was clearly a draw for many RightOnline attendees.

“We’re Palin patriots,” Susan Rodgers of Seattle, Wash., with her husband Prentice, to POLITICO. “The minute we heard that she was speaking, we signed up and bought tickets.”

“She’s recharging,” Prentice said, when asked if Palin was becoming less relevant losing in 2008 as John McCain’s running mate. “She’s reloading.”

“Don’t say that!” scolded his wife, jokingly.

“She’s targeting new opportunities,” Prentice said, laughing.

Also spotted at the Palin speech: a bag, owned by a conference attendee, with a bumper sticker that read, “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted For Palin!”

Via the Right Scoop.