Perhaps. But the short- or long-term prospects of the Drudge Report recapturing its place at the center of our political media are bleak. Even if Drudge were to hire a blogger, open a comments section, and adopt a more substantive approach to news, it’s unlikely that he’d ever match his previous level of influence. Drudge is in part a victim of his own success. He spawned imitators and emulators, who in turn have only further splintered the media world. If there is an agenda to be set, no one outlet or editor has the power to set it. It’s simply too rapid and unknowable a thing to harness. While The Fix, put together by Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post, and Playbook, put together by Politico’s Mike Allen, are often referred to as Drudge’s heirs, neither has the influence that Drudge once had, nor do they display the kind of naked ideological bias that was Drudge’s hallmark. Of course, their existence is a testament to Drudge’s legacy as a trailblazer in the field of Internet newsgathering and gossip mongering. But increasingly, a legacy is all the Drudge Report has to offer.
Feature
11:25 AM - September 9, 2009
Drudge Has Lost His Touch
Technology, the competition, and the times have passed him
#Realtalk: This isn’t another ‘golden age’ for print - But it is one for media
Social media in smaller markets - How three social media managers deal with smaller markets and more local coverage.
A rally for laid-off Sun-Times photogs - A protest Thursday morning drew about 150 picketers to the newspaper’s headquarters
Reporting, or illegal hacking - Scripps reporters are accused of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
Exchange Watch: California Dreaming - Low healthcare premiums on the West Coast were trumpeted as a big, good-news Obamacare story. But: “Compared to what?”
Oops! LAX TSA officer shamed a BoingBoing writer’s daughter
And he used his media clout to make it a thing
Can ladymags do serious journalism?
Some people don’t seem to think so
Atlantic launches weekly iPhone mag
The paid product its prez teased a few months back has arrived
The usefulness of pie charts, in two pie charts
Business Insider launched an excellent attack against pie charts. But if all those words are bogging you down, WaPo has a simpler version
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Yet another Drudge obituary, likely written with the hopes of getting a Drudge link so someone might find the CJR relevant.
Yawn.
#1 Posted by JWF, CJR on Wed 9 Sep 2009 at 03:19 PM
"“Drudge gets so worked up every day about such petty stuff,” one New York newspaper editor told me. “That’s appropriate for carnival/campaign season, but it doesn’t as effectively fit the mood in a country that is serious about sober governing."
I'm willing to bet that Drudge will be around making millions long after the unnamed newpaper editor has gone to his reward.
The brilliance of Drudge is that is doesn't change and it doesn't get pretty. It is just there. It is simple and direct in a world of blathering apps and fonts and pix design.
The beauty of the Drudge business model is that it doesn't depend on liberal angels for money and doesn't run at a loss and doesn't have to hire and hire and hire yet more bloggers and reporters to try and make itself felt.
Oh, it also doesn't depend on phony celebrity blogs and free ranters to get page views. It just gets them.
#2 Posted by vanderleun, CJR on Wed 9 Sep 2009 at 03:37 PM
I used to look at Drudge everyday but now I'm all RSS feeds and Twitter.
#3 Posted by alex, CJR on Wed 9 Sep 2009 at 05:36 PM
Drudge also doesn't break original news the way he used to. I feel like it's rare to see anything on that page that isn't just a link to someone else's work.
#4 Posted by surlybastard, CJR on Wed 9 Sep 2009 at 09:46 PM
"SHOCK: McCAIN VOLUNTEER 'ATTACKED AND MUTILATED' IN PITTSBURGH - "B" CARVED INTO 20 YR OLD WOMAN'S FACE."
Hard-hitting stuff... really raking the muck.
#5 Posted by Hardrada, CJR on Wed 9 Sep 2009 at 10:08 PM
The real story is that Apple Computer is going out of business:
http://www.macobserver.com/appledeathknell/
#6 Posted by Sandy, CJR on Wed 9 Sep 2009 at 11:45 PM
Yep...Drudge (and by authorial implication other conservative bloggers) sure have lost their influence.
I mean that's why Van Jones still has his job, right?
Or, was it the thousands of liberal MSM hacks (working for liberal institutions in bankruptcy or in the process of bleeding out) who brought him down?
Considering the almost universal conspiracy of silence among the MSM (guess those thousands of "journalists" can't get their heads out of their collective asses long enough to learn how to Google) on the Jones story, I think I'll assume that that Drudge et al still have plenty of influence.
#7 Posted by CAS127, CJR on Thu 10 Sep 2009 at 04:43 AM
Drudge is the first place i go in the morning when i fire the computer up. While the liberal press and Huffpo were ignoring the Van Jones story, Drudge was hammering away on that story for over a week.
Politico covers alot of stuff the the liberal msm ignores, but they are still slanted to the left and don't cover stories that they should.
#8 Posted by Dave, CJR on Thu 10 Sep 2009 at 06:03 PM
Yes, Drudge gets eyeballs in the same way that an overturned car on the freeway gets eyeballs. In the end of course it is not the MSM that has a liberal bias, it is reality that has a liberal bias. The fact that many people don't want to accept reality, does not make it any less real.
#9 Posted by theotherjimmyolson, CJR on Thu 10 Sep 2009 at 09:45 PM
I used to go to Drudge because I thought he was a good source of news and the conservative position. Over the months he has lost any credibility as a source of news - e.g. - today he never mentioned that Wilson had apologized. Even if you're going to be slanted, you can be thorough.
#10 Posted by Tilliemom, CJR on Thu 10 Sep 2009 at 09:50 PM
Why not compare Drudge to the NYT. Then we can have an excellent dialogue about the waning readership occurring between two media outlets. Tilliemom, Drudge linked a story including the apology last night around 2130. Did not see the link today though. It was up through this morning though.
#11 Posted by JD, CJR on Thu 10 Sep 2009 at 10:22 PM
Any article about the Drudge Report that doesn't mention Andrew Breitbart is not a complete article on the Drudge Report. Breitbart has been running Drudge for the last few years and is the reason that Drudge had that perfect mix that was so powerful. As Breitbart is gone and doing his own site, the tone has changed and the selection isn't the same. The shift is subtle. That's your story. Too bad you missed it!
#12 Posted by Tricia, CJR on Fri 11 Sep 2009 at 03:01 AM
Why Druge when you can find all the links you want on Twitter?
#13 Posted by MissTheda.com, CJR on Fri 11 Sep 2009 at 08:59 AM
Another pseudo intellectual article hoping to distract from the facts of realism. Your seem to be caught up in the media world of fantasy. Nice try CJR.
#14 Posted by Emil, CJR on Fri 11 Sep 2009 at 09:27 AM
Drudge is a loser (dumbass) with a gruge, that's how you get his last name. Somehow the rest of you missed that, which makes me question your IQ as well. I'm neither liberal or conservative and I think we won't have to worry about such petty crap as this for long. they both are destroying the country rapidly. I'm sure that the cancer is about spread 89% with both parties to blame. Death 2 both Parties.
#15 Posted by Bee, CJR on Fri 11 Sep 2009 at 11:05 AM
Another sad case of Drudge envy. Let's face it. The beauty of Drudge is all he does is provide the text for links. When people accuse him of "being all worked up" and "going ballistic", it is because he wrote a three word headline or, egads, posted two links on the same news item.
Unlike Huffpo and Politico, Drudge does not have to blog thousands of words of rants to make his point, he has to post two or three.
Who was it who said that the one who writes the headlines is the most powerful person at the newspaper?
#16 Posted by Bob, CJR on Fri 11 Sep 2009 at 11:49 AM
I like Drudge.
#17 Posted by Joyous, CJR on Sat 12 Sep 2009 at 06:29 PM
This story might be more persuasive if CJR were not so dedicated to carping at the conservative media ghetto. Talking Points Memo is only effective in the Beltway with predictable liberal journalists; Marshall`s big, uh, "scoop" to date has been the inside-baseball-level firing by the Bush administration of some U.S. attorneys - which may have been maladroit political hardball but was not illegal. In the meantime, outside-bsaeball cables and blogs including Drudge have just embarassed ACORN, gotten Van Jones sacked, and discovered political interference in how arts grants are approached by the Obama-ites, resulting in another resignation. The Huffington Post is read by liberals who just talk to each other - it generates no real news. As long as Drudge and the like are willing to go where the MSM will not go - to that place where liberals are also bigoted; greedy; hypocritical, etc.5sometimes known as the real world) - Drudge will have strong influence. How about a story on the connection between MSM antipathy to framing liberal bad guys as, you know, bad guys, as opposed to the conservative; media, and the toll it takes on MSM credibility? With speculation that this is a factor in its decline in influence?
#18 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 16 Sep 2009 at 12:28 PM
Drudge rules our world! No doubt.
#19 Posted by Dan, CJR on Wed 23 Sep 2009 at 04:19 PM
haha Drudge?
His site hasn't been useful since he was breaking the Clinton- Lewinsky story.
In 2004, the internet didn't play a huge role, it was the television commercials.
Drudge is the AOL of news on the Internet.
#20 Posted by Boston Dan, CJR on Wed 30 Sep 2009 at 12:29 AM
Hey Ethan, have you noticed that that idiots like Alec Baldwin write for the Puffington Post??
#21 Posted by Dan, CJR on Tue 20 Oct 2009 at 07:45 PM