Drudge popped up his infamous siren graphic a couple of days ago, as he had and exclusive on ABCNews holding onto an al Qaeda threat video and possibly timing its release around the election. Hadn’t seen it much for a while. I think the siren speaks volumes about the Drudge Report. First off, what other news source would have such a bold, cheesy graphic like this? It pretty much represents what Matt Drudge does: Breaking headlines, in-your-face, published faster than most other media outlets could possibly do it. I can’t think of a more appropriate attention-getting graphic than the siren to yell out “exclusive breaking news” to the online world. Except maybe a strobe light or one of those seriously annoying, flashing “you just won our contest” banners… I like the siren myself.

The other issue about the siren is that it’s so damn crappy looking. It’s the same pixelated one I can remember going back as long as I’ve been following the Drudge Report. But here’s one thing I find really interesting about Drudge. He sticks with what works like no one else I’ve seen on the internet. His site has been basically the same design since the site’s inception. Matt Drudge talked about his site design for a minute on his radio program last Sunday night. He briefly addressed the issue of why he hadn’t really changed his Drudge Report site design in 9 years. He literally said “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” I guess I wouldn’t argue with the kind of overwhelming success he’s had. Call it stubbornness, practicality or just extreme confidence. The internet is nothing if not constant change. The irony is that his site is one of the most constantly updated on the internet, but the site itself doesn’t really change at all.

So there you go. As long as Drudge is successful and confident, I’m sure we’ll see that siren for a while to come.