Posted on 11/11/2008 7:20:20 AM PST by St. Louis Conservative
At the beginning of the summer, the press considered the Drudge Report so influential that its proprietor, Matt Drudge, was thought to be in position to determine the fall election's results.
Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith of Politico wrote that he had "an uncanny ability to drive the national conversation" and quoted Mitt Romney's press secretary saying that Drudge "serves as an assignment editor for the national press corps." In a piece titled "How Matt Drudge Rules the (Political) World," Washingtonpost.com reporter Chris Cillizza wrote that Drudge and his site "sit at the junction of politics and journalism in the modern media age." Cillizza pointed to both the Politico story and the 2006 book by John F. Harris and Mark Halperin, The Way To Win: Taking the White House in 2008, which anointed Drudge as "the single most influential purveyor of information about American politics." Harris and Halperin also credited Drudge as a major reason for John Kerry's2004 defeat.
By the fall, Drudge had lost it, the press surmised. "Does Matt Drudge, an unabashed conservative, still have huge clout in shaping the media's coverage?" the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz asked on Sept. 18. "Or is his influence overstated by those seeking a simple explanation for why MSM types do what they do?" Kurtz cited TPM's Greg Sargent, who had just chronicled the decline of Drudge's influence over cable news. By late October, Media Matters' Eric Boehlert was calling the Drudge Report "unplugged down the stretch." Cillizza expanded on Boehlert's theme in his blog on Oct. 30, quoting a series of wishful headlines on the Drudge Report hinting at a possible upset of Barack Obama by John McCain.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
LOL Drudge will be the Bane of Obama’s existance... Look for all the Left Looney’s to try and silence Matt.
I don’t subscribe to the Enquirer and I never go to Drudge.
That would change if he returns to the Drudge of the 90’s.
There is not a newsroom in America without a browser pointed to Drudge.
Although Drudge does lean toward the right, he was very fair to Obama on many occasions. IMHO nothing anyone could have done would have changed the outcome of this election. Bambi had this in the bag due to 24 hour glowing media praise, an weak Republican candidate, failing economy and a lame duck President who's approval rating was sinking to about the IQ level of Obama.
I have just not been that hooked on Drudge. Now I am hooked on FR. Last week was like a addict on withdrawal.
Explain to me how Drudge was different, say, 10 years ago, than he is now.
Please be VERY specific.
I still look at Drudge. He has the most interesting aggregate of stories - other than Free Republic of course!
Drudge leans right for sure, however the real bias on his page is AGAINST mainstream media bias. He has also been very favorable to Sarah Palin. Drudge hates your run of the mill Republican RINOs like McCain.
FR is a lot better at presenting relevant news stories than Drudge.
I’ll give you an example of why I come here rather than Drudge. During the news cycle with the lying girl who carved a B backwards onto her own cheek, Drudge blared the headline for the whole day, while the FR thread had some reasonable commentary to temper the story that was bound to wind up as a fraud.
The value-add of FReepers themselves should never be underestimated :-)
Agreed. I still love Drudge, but that “B” mutilation story was a black-eye and an embarrassment for Drudge. Those kinds of things are pretty rare though - I look forward to him being a fly in Obama’s ointment.
Yeah, I can understand that. Whenever anyone asked why I was going to vote for McCain I always told them I wasn't voting for McCain, I was voting against Obama.
I see your sign up date was in 1998...same as mind. A decade later, and I’m as hooked on FR as I was in 1998. I can’t think of anything I’ve really done consecutively for 10 years! It’s pretty amazing!
Yeah, that was bad, wasn't it? I still cringe everytime I think of it.
He made news happen. He had sources. He had clout. When was the last time he broke an important story? Be VERY specific.
Same here. I signed up originally with my own name before my current Aug 1998 sign up date. I found FR on Drudge when it first appeared there. When did FR first come on Drudge, doesn’t anyone know?
Never underestimate the war between print and broadcast vs. the Internet. Print and broadcast has tried, with varying degrees of effectiveness to master online, yet for the most part falls significantly short of taking over the Internet. With HuffPo, Politico, Kos, and Google being so firmly inside the Obama camp, now more than ever these sites and companies need stiff competition and outing for their agendas.
Isn’t HuffPo the biggest news/political blog in the world? How did that happen?
OH gosh, what would we do without it?
I am off TV news and other mainstream news.
I will have to start looking at Drudge also. I used to look at CNN et al, but with the mania now I refuse to do that
I just wish I had come up with the idea. He lives and works in a lavish Miami condo in a resort hotel.
Just crazy. As a reporter myself, I would frankly rather do that. Actual decent pay, and you get to drive the news, at least a bit. :)
The “B” mutilation story. LOL.
Drudge succeeds by not necessarily breaking stories, but by pushing stories into the mainstream that wouldn’t be covered otherwise. I don’t even know how Drudge would break a story anyway - he doesn’t have reporters/correspondents.
You must not have been here 10 years ago.
Exactly why we quit the site a good 7 years ago. He no longer exists for me.
Enough Soros money buys enough advertising coupled with favorable Google AdWords placement, and you’ve bought yourself the biggest news/political blog in the world.
That's Drudge's MO. He blares the shocking, scandalous headline right up until, or sometimes after, the story has been discredited; then it disappears without a whisper. It's a rumor site, not a news site; sometimes the rumors pan out, but usually not.
Can anyone name a major story Drudge has broken since Monica? That one story inflated his importance beyond reason, and he's now belatedly coming back to Earth.
I think very late 1997.
Yeah, I know he DID break the Lewinsky story because he had a source at Newsweek or something - however I can’t think of any other stories he broke. Drudge’s entire claim to fame was breaking that story.
And no, I wasn’t here 10 years ago.
So you didn't come up with the idea but what's stopping you from doing the same? We sure could use another Drudge to help counter the total left wing MSM. If you do you'd find a LOT of support, I'm sure. I'm a software developer and can build websites, if I had reporting skills (which I don't) I'd open one up in a second. You can guess that I totally hate the MSM and would love to be part of bring them down.
Good point. Where was his headline about Obama's call for an internal security force?
Drudge has what the editors of the NY Times, LA times and com.Post and all of the others don't.
An eye for a good story. That is it. That is all.
You go to his site. Almost every single story he links is either of critical importance or it is just damned interesting. These are stories that tell us about who we are, where the world is headed or how things work. Or don't work.
At that he has no peer. He understands which articles in the MSM are good better than does the MSM itself who wrote them.
That's all he does. Nothing more. Nothing less.
There was a link on Drudge called "Whitewater Files" which was the precursor to FR - I'm pretty sure I first linked to it in the Summer of 1997. Not sure how long it was there before I discovered it (my Uncle told me about it at a family 4th of July picnic in 1997, that's how I pinpoint the date).
During Whitewater scandal.
Agreed.
BTTT
Well, good point. Those who think that because an idea has been done before it means they can’t succeed at the same thing are incorrect. Hmm.
Drudge never "made news happen." I would just guess that Druge has discovered that breaking stories, himself, is a two way street. He doesn't have the resources or contacts to do due diligence on key stories, the way a newspaper editor can or should. A near death experience with a defamation suit is all it takes to decide not to be in that business. Leave it for the big boys with large teams of trained attorneys.
I also agree. If Drudge disappeared, I wouldn’t miss him. He’s simply an news aggregator - a bunch of raw links to stories that may/may not be true. FReepers do a great job of presceen and analysis. Their nose for BS masquerading as news is acute.
On the other hand, if I were one of those “journalists” sitting in front of a blank computer screen, desperately looking for a story idea so my editor doesn’t find out I’m a hack, I’d probably have Drudge linked to my browser, too.
Of course. Bill gates didn't invent software or computers yet it worked out okay for him.
I meant to include you in my post #41.
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