The Summer of 1998 Sizzled on the Internet
It was becoming rather clear that the scandal was not going away anytime soon. The Office of Independent Council was desperate to save face after years of wasting money and coming away without evidence of criminal activity and was going to rely on exposure tactics to influence public opinion. The media was enjoying the frenzy and web readership was hungry for more including the opportunity to comment, post, and share.
In a demonstration of citizen journalist work and sharing in June 1998 Monica got a web cam. It had to happen (http://www.webdevs.com/monicacam/). The Monicacam was pointed at the door of the building at 1100 Connecticut Avenue in Washington, where the offices of Monica Lewinsky's lawyers, Plato Cacheris and Jacob Stein were located. The image on Monicacam was updated every ten minutes. By early August Monica’s Web Cam had over 41,220 visitors and a photo of the hysteria outside the offices the day her immunity was announced became a permanent part of the Web Cam site.
Vanity Fair did Monica Lewinsky, but not on the web, directly anyway. During the first half of June, while Ken Starr was being hit with a major blow regarding his office leaking material to the press and other less than professional and perhaps illegal acts, Monica Lewinsky and Vanity Fair Magazine proved several things. First Monica Lewinsky had the attention of much of the world.
Second, Vanity Fair still knew how to outdo and out punch and otherwise out publish almost all other media. The six page photo spread of Monica Lewinsky published in the July issue of the magazine was the talk everywhere. The issue was selling wildly even at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Cherry Creek (Denver) which had an exceptionally large stack of the magazines that were selling rather quickly. The Vanity Fair spread was indeed the Monica Lewinsky event for early summer, even bigger news than her getting new attorneys. On the web there were numerous references to the Beret (which Monica has also helped to revitalize as a cultural icon) and the feathers used in the Vanity Fair photos. There were several headlines on the web about the article including:
By August 1998 Monica Lewinsky Joke Pages were quickly popping on the Web packed with consumer-generated content including:
A study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington showed that from January 1, 1998 through July 31, 1998 Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Bill Maher told a total of 1,172 jokes about President Clinton and sex. That does not include the monologues in August after Clinton testified before a grand jury about what he called his inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Leno led the joke parade with 545 Clinton sex jokes. Letterman was runner-up with 364.
On August 17, 1998 the FBI Laboratory confirmed that the DNA sample taken from Monica Lewinsky’s dress matches the blood taken from President Clinton. But the big kicker of the day was that President Clinton testified before the grand jury and acknowledged having an improper relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Web polls were set up on many news websites including cnn.com, msnbc.com, abcnews.com, news.com. The polls served to drive traffic and provide an opportunity for readers to participate in the frenzy and share their opinions.
Monica Lewinsky could drive web traffic like nothing ever before her. The CNN Web sites broke their previous traffic records during the week ending August 23, 1998 serving 106.8 million page impressions, an increase of more than 25% on the sites' average weekly traffic. Reader’s interest in the allegations against President Clinton and his admission of an "inappropriate relationship" with Monica Lewinsky and the military strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan lead to CNN's four busiest days on the Web. CNN's Audioselect service, which offered live audio feeds of five CNN networks, had a record one-half million accesses during the week, including its two busiest days on August 17th and 20th 1998. The CNN Web sites generated more traffic and attracted more unduplicated Internet users than any other company's general news and information websites and the era of media convergence was ramping up at a very fast rate.