Did Matt Drudge cause the stock market to drop?

That’s the quesiton that ABC News contributor Michael Malone is pondering in a Silicon Insider column posted on the network’s web site.

Malone points out that former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan gave a speech this past weekend about the inevitability of a recession in this country. His speech wasn’t anything new. In fact, only the Associated Press covered it.

Malone wrote, “Greenspan wasn’t saying anything shocking; on the contrary, he was being his typical prudent and opaque self. You can turn on any cable financial show right now and hear a lot more apocalyptic predictions.

“Indeed, the story was so unthrilling that it appears only AP covered it – and, contrary to its current reputation, actually managed to write a balanced and objective story. And, as you might expect, it produced little more than a shrug from the financial markets.

“But that’s when Drudge stepped in. For no obvious reason, he decided to link to the two day old AP story. He then attached one of his classic scare headlines: ‘Greenspan warns of likely U.S. recession.’ Personally, I love stuff like that – it harkens back to the good old days of newspapering and the vastly underrated age of yellow journalism – and if the viewer chose to read the term ‘imminent’ into Drudge’s words, and then link through to the AP story . . .well, bully for Matt. That’s his job, and he does it better than anybody.”

Read more here. Malone’s conclusion: “Every time a threatened industry has tried to survive by adopting the new paradigm it has failed. The only solution is to come up with an even newer paradigm of your own.

“That’s what Matt Drudge did, and now it seems he can move the entire world economy. When was the last time a New York Times headline did that?”