drudge blog

This is a teenie little Drudge geek thing, but Drudge is once again way ahead of the pack. It’s already DRUDGE REPORT 2005® in his HTML page title. Been that way for a few days. Happy new year!

I just wanted to make a shameless plug for my site, Drudge Forum. If you haven’t visited the site yet, it’s the place to discuss the day’s Drudge Report headlines, all things Drudge, as well as hot politics and lots of other stuff. The site has been growing steadily with new members and I’ve made lots of changes recently, so even if you’ve visited before it’s worthwhile to take a look again. www.drudgeforum.com

OK, now back to our regularly scheduled posting…

I think one of the reasons we find the Drudge Report entertaining is that it’s serving as a news aggregator for us. The problem with just looking at CNN.com for news, for example, is that you just get their stories and their view. However, if you just had a news aggregator compiling news from multiple sources automatically, it still wouldn’t be as entertaining as Drudge. Google News is like this - lots of information from many sources compiled without human intervention. Informative but not very interesting. But Matt Drudge constantly seeks out news from multiple sources with many different edtiors and styles. And you constantly get his take on the world. So, I guess you’d call the Drudge Report a “human edited news aggregator.” There you go, a new Drudge geek term…

You know it’s been a couple of slow news days on Drudge when the top story yesterday all day long was the Clinton Library dedication, and this morning it’s Michael Jackson being sued by a furniture store. But slow news days are pretty revealing about what interests Drudge.

This morning, we see TV ratings news, surprising celebrity quotes from Jim Carrey and Linda Ronstadt, and sensationalizing the small Michael Jackson story. He also really likes to follow Howard Stern - he’s got a couple of stories posted there today. Of course, if Drudge posts it on his website, is it really a small story anymore?

It’s a slow day over at Drudge, but you can see one of his favorite recurring themes in action tonight. Animal oddities or extremes is a fav of Matt Drudge. Tonight we see the swarm of the locusts in Egypt and the attack of the 19-ft long Great White Shark in Cape Town. I don’t ever think it’s coincidence when Matt posts items in pairs or threesomes that relate to each other. He’s a talented news guy and that’s part of the entertainment value. The fact that he hits these themes and relationships at warp speed is probably most interesting to me.

I was listening to Drudge Radio tonight and thinking that Matt Drudge would have a great voice for a cartoon. It’s just quirky and non-serious enough to make a great character. Hey, maybe he could even play a funny news reporter…

I’ll be trying out a couple of different styles of Drudge coverage over the next few days. Bear with me as I try to find the method that works best for me. There are lots of directions this blog can go, so I just need to find the one that speaks to me. Stay tuned…

I’m sure it’s stating the obvious to regular Drudge readers, but the Drudge Report is mostly a 5 1/2 day a week operation. I write this on a Saturday as I’ve looked at the snoozer of a Drudge Report today. Unless there’s big breaking news on the weekend, there just aren’t many Drudge Report updates. Often, Friday’s stories will linger into Saturday and there are just a few obligatory posts just to keep the site active. If the site’s updated at 100% on weekdays, I’d say it’s usually at 10% on weekends. I say 5 1/2 days a week because leading into Matt Drudge’s Sunday night radio show he heats up the site with lots of updates late in the day Sunday. As well as the in-your-face promo for his radio show…

Now, I certainly don’t blame Drudge for taking it easy on the weekend. He stays plenty busy the rest of the week, where he does nearly 24 hours-a-day posting even on not-so-big news days. The weekend is slow for news sites and networks all over on the weekend. But, I’m sure as Drudge’s critics would chime in, he’s supposed to be a legitimate news operation so he shouldn’t take the weekend “off.” I’ve personally seen him be pretty slow on the draw on the weekend, even when the big stories break. The question of whether he’s a major, “legitimate” news source is for another discussion.