It’s a typical day for any office worker: come into work; get a cup of coffee; then check the Drudge Report before actually getting to work. One can be guaranteed to read a negative story about Democrats, an article against illegal immigrants, an article about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, or the current celebrity punching bag of the day. Not every single story is true, but it doesn’t matter; it’s on the Drudge Report! Love or hate Matt Drudge and/or his website, he is the most powerful man in America. He has the ability to make any thought or agenda on his mind talked about by everybody. Popular newspapers, such as the Washington Post, often get ideas for their stories based on what’s on the Drudge Report.
Drudge’s job isn’t as easy and glamorous as one would think. In an interview with the Sunday Times in London, Drudge talked about how he works late, tracking down stories, searching dozens of news agencies, web-sites, newspapers, radio broadcasts, television channels and tip-offs in the hope that he will be the first to bag tomorrow’s headlines. “I was first to break the news about the death of Lady Diana,” he told the Sunday Times “The CNN team couldn’t get into make-up fast enough.” Mr. Druge works a very grueling schedule. “Yesterday I spent 13 hours in my hotel room looking for news. I’ve done seven hours already today and will do another seven tonight.” Matt Drudge, who often exposes the private lives of others, is very guarded about his private life. “I’m not very social. I live on an island in Miami, Florida, and I do my own shopping and pay my taxes,” he says. “And I’m not mean.”
One reason to love Matt Drudge is the fact that he symbolizes the American dream. After graduating #341 (out of 355) in his high school class, Drudge took such jobs as a cashier at 7-11, telemarketer for Time/Life Books, and manager at a McDonalds. Eventually, Drudge moved to Hollywood in 1989, where he would obtain a job in the gift shop at CBS studios. He soon worked his way up to manager and would be able to obtain inside information that founded his Drudge Report, which started as an email newsletter that was posted to the alt.showbiz.gossip Usenet forums. He eventually started to gain a following, even though it was only the early days of the Internet.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - RJ
Great article!
Rarely does a day go by that I don't visit the Drudge Report at least once, to catch up on the latest political and/or celebrity scandal.
Let's face it: Even leftists who hate Drudge's politics visit his site frequently. The man is simply indispensable.
2 - daryl d
his site is harmless, as long as you realize that not everything he writes is true.
3 - Michael J. West
I'll certainly take his website any day of the week over his godawful radio show....
4 - duff
i agree with daryl, the dems and rep are wrecking the country. It's like the politicians are puppets of a dark puppet master. I love drudge though. At least his spin is my spin. Blogging is good for the country. It gives the average citizen a voice.
5 - Alec
Drudge is the apotheosis of the sad notion that opinions can be entirely fact-free and still be nourishing. I never check his site, but have listened to talk radio hosts who slavishly quote him.
The amazing thing is how he prospers even though he does no original reporting. Even more amazing is how the dolts who think he is credible moan and whine about how the mainstream media is biased and somehow disconnect from the fact that Drudge's "sources" is the same mainstream media that is supposedly so rotten.
There is nothing unique or non-traditional about Drudge. He is simply an old style pamphleteer gussied up for the digital age.
He is neither dangerous nor important because in the end his audience is limited to those who prefer the comfort of spin to the uncertainty of actual information.
6 - Dave Nalle
I'd hardly call him the most powerful man in America, but he certainly played a role in making blogs a significant factor in the news.
But what's with the incredibly silly hat?
Dave
7 - Steve Rhodes
Matt Drudge is far from the most powerful person in the US. And he didn't give power to bloggers. He actually refuses to be called a blogger.
You neglect to mention that a lot of the info Drudge posted early on to usenet came from Harry Knowles.
And a lot of people went to Drudge's page at first because it was a useful collection of links. Then people were driven there by all the mainstream media attention.
For far too long Drudge was often the main example given of online journalism in mainstream stories. And while the stories often had a critical tone, they rarely examined all the mistakes he makes (almost always without any corrections).
This is just one example
Blogs have changed that (which may be one reason he dislikes them so much and is far more likely to link to a story on a news website than a blog).
His numbers are also vastly overinflated since his page does a frequent forced refresh.
He is still stuck in the 90s netscape era. He hasn't redesigned his page or embraced anything learned from web2.0.
8 - daryl d
LOL at that hat. But my cousin thinks he is the sexiest man she has ever seen and wants desperately to marry him.
9 - J.J. Hunsecker
Fox News is the only media outlet who shills for the right? You should do some research next time.
The hat is an obvious throwback to reporters of the past and it covers his receding hairline.
10 - daryl d
I was hoping that Drudge would at least link to this article. I know he always links to positive articles about himself.
11 - sandra
"I was hoping that Drudge would at least link to this article"
is that why you wrote the article in the first place? Just kidding (or am I)?......
12 - Alec
RE: The hat is an obvious throwback to reporters of the past and it covers his receding hairline.
It reminds me of gossip peddler Walter Winchell, who made his bones revealing salacious celebrity secrets, and whose influence dropped precipitously after he hitched his wagon to Joe McCarthy's media circus.
Drudge also brings to mind the fictional newspaper columnist J.J. Hunsecker in the great film, "Sweet Smell of Success."
13 - daryl d
Well, I was hoping he would. Having a link to the Drudge Report is an honor for any writer. But I wouldn't waste an hour on this article soley for that purpose. Speakng of Drudge, has any blogcritics article ever been linked by Drudge? Our articles are always on the top of google's search list for any topic we write about, so you'd think he would notice our work.
14 - Ray Ellis
Being linked to Drudge is an honor??? I'd liken it more to defamation of character.
15 - Al Barger
Daryl D- You've got no legitimate basis for your repeated statements in this story that not everything Drudge says is true. That statement may be technically true, in that any news story may turn out to be different than it first looked.
You cite the same Blumenthal false-start that everybody always cites. The reason it is always cited is because there are very few legitimate big dead ends like that on Drudge that you can cite after ten years.
You also say essentially that he's pursuing an ideological agenda, only telling the one side of the story. That's just false as well. There are stories running all directions of viewpoint. The good old days that you seem to like so good were Walter Cronkite's pinko news filter running the world. He just liked to pretend that he was neutral.
In fact, Fox News and certainly Drudge are much more in fact fair and balanced than Cronkite or Rather. It's just that left wing fools are so used to completely owning the country's mental landscape assume that anyone who isn't actively promoting their agenda is a right wing tool. As Colbert says with his little Daily Show display of unearned arrogance "Reality has a left wing bias." Well, no it doesn't.
Also, Dan Rather for one example is really bad and dishonest - unlike Matt Drudge. He gets to wear that goddam National Guard story as a badge of dishonor for the rest of his miserable life, and it will be the first sentence of many obits when he dies - as well it should be. Drudge might now and again be accused of pushing a story without waiting for sufficient corroboration (and correcting it immediately and prominently when it didn't pan out). Dan Rather willfully found patently bogus documentation that he had to have known was forged, then used it to try to sandbag W's re-election. There's being a little quick to jump the gun, and then there's being a goddam liar trying to dishonestly throw an election from your anchor chair.
And again with more bogus nonsense about how Drudge always links to positive articles on himself. He just as frequently links to negative articles about himself and his supposed evil influence.
In short, Matt Drudge is an honest man busy doing God's work. Thank heavens for Matt Drudge.
16 - daryl d
I thought this was a positive article, Al. But I agree with you about Dan Rather: read my piece on him from a couple weeks ago. But if you think Fox News is more fair and balanced than other outlets, you are being brainwashed.
17 - daryl d
Ray:
Regardless if you like Drudge or not, he is the most powerful man on the Internet. Having a story linked by his website is a writer's dream come true. Don't tell me you would turn down the chance to have one of your Bruce Springsteen shilling pieces linked on The Drudge Report!
18 - Ray Ellis
You really should invest in a thesaurus, Daryl. There are other words that convey the same message as "shilling," most of which would be more appropriate than your overuse of the word.
Another thing you might want to do is chill on things about which you know absolutely nothing. To wit:
You've nver seen a Springsteen article by me in these pages. Not that I would have minded it, but Glen Boyd especially (among others) writes about him eloquently enough that I have nothing worthwhile to add. In fact, the last time I reviewed Springsteen was when "Nebraska:" was released. And yeah, I praised it, much to the dismay of my hipper than thou punk/new wave readership.
In your tiny little universe, I've no doubt that a link to Drudge is an event of orgasmic proportions. But a writer's dream come true? That's like being a guest on Jerry Springer in my book.
19 - cornelius
Someone said "the only 'free press' is the one you own" expresses my opinion on the North American media. The majority of voters like to be brain-washed by self-interest groups. People are too lazy to think for themselves and accept opinions of people that tell the scariest stories stories.
20 - Dave Nalle
LOL at that hat. But my cousin thinks he is the sexiest man she has ever seen and wants desperately to marry him.
I think she may be disappointed - isn't he gay?
Dave
21 - daryl d
a GAY Republican - no way!!!
22 - charlie doherty
"It all becomes rather apparent that traditional journalism, itself, has turned into joke. Whether shilling for the left (Time, Newsweek, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Los Angeles Times, New York Times) or the right (Fox News), journalism is not the same it used to be."
Darryl, I liked your article until the above quote.
First of all, I have to ask you if you read MediaMatters.org every day, or as often as you read the Drudge Report.
If you did, you would not label ABC, the NYT and Newsweek as simply "left[y]" media organizations.
Every now and then, Newsweek is guilty of Republican bias, whether it's their reporters gushing for Mitt Romney, playing down or leaving incomplete Fred Thompson's questionable actions as a Senator (shutting down an investigation before it could get close to charging fellow GOP Senators Sam Brownback and Don Rickles on campaign fundraising irregularities), etc.
You forget, Newsweek still employs George Will.
And the New York Times just did a hit piece on John Edwards that failed basic tenants of journalism (like proving your thesis: John Edwards used non-profit primarily to build bridge to '08).
And who could forget Judith Miller? She did more damage with her inaccurate reporting on Iraq than Jayson Blair ever could.
And ABC? This is the organization that wouldn't let Nightline air the names and faces of the Iraq war dead not so long ago, AND who effectively fired Bill Maher (talk about someone who ranks on both Dems and Republicans).
And ABC's Jake Tapper has been known to wonder "why in hell" Americans would elect Barack Obama (with a last name being "Hussein.")
So if you really consider yourself a media analyst, read Media Matters and other media watchdog sites and you will see the MSM media tilt is much more to the right and toward the Bush administration than it ever will be to the left.
How else to explain why 41% of Americans STILL think Saddam's Iraq had someone to do with 9/11, according to the latest Newsweek poll out this week?!
23 - daryl d
Thanks for your response, Charlie. It's so refreshing to get a critical response to one of my articles that doesn't have a personal attack in it.
I cannot claim to be an expert media analyst and haven't checked out the Media Matters site you mentioned, but perhaps I should.
Traditionally, all the organizations I mentioned that shill for the left (shill has become a favorite word of mine for some reason or another) have been really liberal. In the past five years, though, I do believe they have become more balanced (save for the Los Angeles Times..a Communist rag). Well, at least they don't use the slogan "fair and balanced" which Fox does and trust me, Fox is anything but fair and balanced. Nothing is fair and balanced.
24 - charlie doherty
Darryl, thanks for complimenting my criticism (if that's possible). I believe in constructive criticism, like the type you will see on Media Matters (obviously a favorite site of mine) not personally attacking people, 'cuz that's not how I was brought up.
Remember the "Golden Rule," so-to-speak, that you should treat people as YOU would want to be treated?
It's a forgotten principle, and I just wish more people, journalists, bloggers or whatever they call themselves realize that insults and personal attacks never advance a debate, they just make people (name-callers) feel like tough guys or know-it-alls, while at the same hindering and knocking off track the subject at hand.
And debates in Congress these days aren't much better either. Empty rhetoric and hypocrisy rule the day on Capitol Hill, more so by those on the right than on the left (perhaps because the Republican message machine/echo chamber is louder and is more organized than the Democrats').
And it contributes to fights on everything from spending bills to Iraq and the immigration bill, which the right and Lou Dobbs call "amnesty," even though it would take the average immigrant at least eight years to get citizenship, among other things.
We're never going to solve anything when substantive arguments on controversial issues seem like an endangered species.
So my message to you and everyone else is, before you label someone or something, do your homework first 'cuz there's no lack or research sources out there, and the more substantive (and dare I say it, "fair and balanced") arguments you make, the harder it is for you to get flooded with angry, and yes, personal attacks.
25 - STM
"It all becomes rather apparent that traditional journalism, itself, has turned into joke".
Yeah, nice one Daryl. Try sitting in a cafe on a Saturday or Sunday morning with a laptop reading snippets of the day's news, trying to juggle a big glass of OJ, a plate of bacon and eggs and a dirty big coffee.
There's still a place for the newspaper, and it's a place the computer and internet will likely never conquer: the breakfast table.
And considering about 98 per centof the world's newspapers are still morning papers, I'd hazard a guess that blogs and net access to news are not going to be the core business of most print news organisations for at the least the next 30 years.
So if you wants your print journalism serious, folks, you pays your dollar and gets it from people a) who actually get paid to do it, and b) know what they're doing and have the resources to back it up (Mr Drudge and the very talented Tim Blair from Australia notwithstanding).