By RegoPark
Contributing Weblogger

It’s an eventful week in the Drudge world as the Supreme Court renders decision on issues Matt holds close to his heart - file sharing and other privacy issues. Speaking of public decisions, monitor the Drudge Report between now and next Sunday night. If Jacko is convicted, Matt has promised to eat the Thriller album on the Las Vegas strip (making that the third time this year he’s broadcast from Sin City.)

Meanwhile, DrudgeBlog is sending yours truly on assignment to St. Petersburg, Russia this approaching month to report upon the influence of Drudge and the alternative media in that hemisphere. (Translation: I’m on a writing fellowship.)

Stay tuned…

…to follow the Drudge Report.

If you haven’t read it before, Gawker has a campy fascination with Matt Drudge and the Drudge Report. It’s a few days old, but I found this post on Gawker about Drudge Radio and Drudge in general. It’s an interesting perspective.

By RegoPark
Contributing Blogger

Last entry sparked a dialogue on Drudge Forum between yours truly and the other “yours truly” here on Drudge Blog.

Lance: I definitely think Drudge is more mainstream now and has some of the same issues that news companies have. And I don’t think he’s truly “alternative” anymore. I still hear people like Jeff Jarvis refer to him as “alternative.” He’s somewhere in the middle now…

That got me thinking… If we agree Drudge is no longer alternative, why is that? Has Drudge really changed or has the news media adjusted its attitude toward him? Maybe it’s a mutual thing.

If you take Brian Lamb’s C-SPAN interviews as an example, he treats Matt like any other journalist. (I don’t know if he did when he first began to invite him on 8 years ago. ) To be fair, an on-air Drudge tête-à-tête (like an unedited, transcribed raw print interview) is a bit of a rarity and it’s difficult to gauge how the mainstream journalistic community really treats him across the board. But they realize he’s not going away, and it behooves them to accept him as a reality if not give him a forum.

In the first years of his fame, Matt Drudge was busy addressing basic issues of whether he was a “real” journalist, whether he was a legitimate news source, defending his Blumenthal lawsuit, defending his decision to leak the Lewinsky info and scoop Newsweek - a host of so many distractions that he no longer has to deal with. When the Fox News show didn’t work out and Matt wouldn’t compromise his autonomy to keep it, it was heralded as “The Decline of Drudge.” I think the historical ramifications of what he was doing distracted him as well as the rest of us. Nowadays, with a successful radio show and a site that’s nicely sustaining itself, he still gets derided as a right-wing tool or a gossip or by making a story out of a non-story (i.e. Alexander Polier, Chris Rock) but he’s not juggling nearly as many philosophical balls in the air.

I often see online comments that he isn’t what he used to be — that now all he does is post links, that he’s obsessed with everything from the weather to Democrats’ sexual peccadillos to photos taken out of context. Now, I’ve followed the Drudge Report for less than a year, and frankly, I’m more interested in the aforementioned “philosophical balls” than the content itself. I suspect, however, that the perceived decline is really a reflection of readers’ expectations of what Matt and his site is supposed to represent. True, anybody can do what Matt does if they have the time and commitment. He happened to be the trailblazer, and it’s a bit challenging to catch up with him. But once that ceiling has been broken and the rubber marks are left in the driveway, then what? Matt keeps on keeping on, but the eyeballs in cyberspace are gradually becoming more aware of brand attributes that have, for the most part, been there all along. Of course, it’s a different world from the 1995 when he quit his day job to work the site full-time. But how different is he, really?

Matt isn’t as much of an outsider as he used to be, but neither is he part of the mainstream media. Since he pretty much paved the way for the bloggers (a term he hates), webbloggers (better, Matt?) will soon enjoy at least a little more respectablility than he did in the early days because their value and role has been figured out. Also, Matt was initially thought of as a gossip. I’d say he has decidedly more power and clout than the webloggers, but still in the “citizen journalist” camp. I see him somewhere in the middle of the respectability continuum - still an outsider, just no longer a pariah.

Has Matt Drudge, in fact, changed? He can do his job more efficiently. He’s richer. He has, as I pointed out last entry, friends in high places. He’s gotten comfortable, but he clearly loves his work and no one forces him to put in 15 hours a day (the number he quoted last Sunday night). But Drudge Report is still the place to go if you want to anonymously leak a story to the news media. Sure, you can start your own site, but Drudge is where a scoop will get exposure — at least today. The Drudge Report isn’t a news organization - it’s one guy, no bureaucracy. A wholly different corps of pros and cons from, say, the New York Times. No one forces him to withhold a story, but I’m sure his relationships with newsmakers affect his decisions to cover or link it.

His basic M.O. is still there. Like he said in the C-SPAN interview last month and in a few others, he isn’t sure how long he will last, anyway. People could tire of him, something else could come along to outshine or supplant him, a major computer virus or online news sources charging for content could throw a monkey wrench in it all. I don’t think he’s changing what he does for anyone or anything. He’s enjoying it while it lasts, and it’s not so much Drudge that’s changed as our own perception of him.

Reporters marry sources who work for clients who employ bureau chiefs
Who dine with agents who wined the lawyers who date the editors
Who have sex with the reporters who share the beachhouses
With the sources who are married to the bureau chiefs
Who hire the reporters who are married
To the lawyers who date
The columnists
That dish
Stars
Who dine
With the editors
Who have sex with
The sources after meeting
With lawyers who lobby Congress
To protect a president who is friends with
The bureau chiefs who hire the reporters who
Have sex with the editors who blast the Internet websites…

…Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor, WASHINGTON POST, urged his reporters to leave CNN, which has not yet merged with MSNBCNEWSWEEKWASHINGTONPOSTCOM but has merged with TIMEWARNERSPORTSILLUSTRATEDPEOPLEMAGAZINE-ENTERTAINMENTWEEKLYWTBSTNTHEADLINENEWS.COM.

Thus spake MattDrudgeJuliaPhillips in a chapter of Drudge Manifesto, 2000, the former excerpt titled “Le Ronde de le Monde 2000″ (since proper English spelling isn’t Matt’s strong point, I won’t get on his case about French grammar.)

At some point it’ll hit every news consumer that the players in the news world are — well — a little too closely intertwined with the people in the news. Maybe it’s not their fault; maybe nothing can be done about this. We can’t blame anchor Julie Chen for marrying media mogul Les Moonves or Maria Shriver from hooking up with Ahnald. Larry King has quite a few newsworthy buddies worthy of a 1-hour CNN interview, and, in this week’s case, ole Larry makes news himself on his own network testifying for a famous friend in court. And it’s not just personal relationships, but the stuff that deals are made of. Even before the megaclusters of AOL/TimeWarner/Everything Else started mushrooming into their current swollen state, every news medium from TV networks to print has been owned by or affiliated with a private, for-profit, not entirely unbiased source. It’s no news that our news outlets could be owned by anything from Westinghouse to the Moonies. But it’s interesting, as Drudge pointed out last night, that no one in the entertainment industry has touched the subject of the Clinton/Lewinsky affair. Wonder why?

We have, however, entered an era where there’s more awareness and disclosure thereof: CBS, for example, has to reveal its connection to the Bob Dylan biography on the same 60 Minutes episode it features Bobby’s interview.

While Matt Drudge has never been one to campaign for boycotts against nonobjective media outlets — then what would he link to? Then what would be left to watch? — he certainly doesn’t mind raising public awareness of its limitations.

I’m really giving blanket lip service to a couple of interrelated subjects here: the blurring line between entertainment and news, the compounding presence of news conglomerates, the politicization of Hollywood, etc. But for now, let’s focus on the relationships between key media players and the individuals they cover.

The rub is that if you make anything smacking of a name for yourself in the news world, as Drudge has, you create your own personal networks. You become part of other people’s networks. It’s simply not possible to completely avoid a potential conflict of interest. To maintain one’s momentum, it’s necessary to create and maintain relationships in high places…and often someone like Drudge finds himself as a subject of a news story.

Just so we’re clear on what conflicts could impact Drudge’s objective coverage of the news, I’ll list a sampling here:

* Matt is friends with his repeat radio show guests/subjects of linked stories like conservatives like Ann Coulter and liberals like Camille Paglia.
* Michael Isikoff of Newsweek got mighty mad at Matt when he scooped his story on Lewinsky that Newsweek decided not to run.
* Newsweek speculated in reports that Matt may have hacked into their computers to scoop the aforementioned story.
* Key players in the Clinton White House used their clout– and then some — to help Sidney Blumenthal in his lawsuit against Matt.
* Matt had a falling out with Fox News when the network refused to let him air a photo of an unborn fetus on this show.
* Matt is angry with Bill O’Reilly because O’Reilly lied to him on Drudge Radio and later said some derogatory things about him.
* The Huffington Post was hyped in February as a competitor to the Drudge Report and hired away Matt’s long-term and only assistant, Andrew Breitbart.
* Saturday Night Live has done at least one recent spoof of Matt, which he did not appreciate.
* MSNBC’s Jeannette Walls, Republican-turned-Democratic political pundit David Brock, and Alec Baldwin have stories about Matt that he denies.
* Many members of the news media have trashed Drudge.
* Many well-known blogs have trashed Drudge.
* Ditto many celebrities, media and political figures.
* Most importantly, Matt has become an insider himself, one of those journalists he felt alienated by whom he noticed “rubbed each other’s backs” at events. He has co-hosted dinners at the Republican National Convention week, he attends the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and attends private parties and events that bloggers generally can’t access. I found it particularly interesting that in his April radio broadcast of London, he scrupulously avoided mentioning Rupert Murdoch’s name in an anecdote about a party of his that Matt had attended. He did, however, name his name when he related the very same anecdote in the U.S. the following week.

Does this make Matt a hypocrite? I have to say I don’t think so. Of course, he’s not required by law to disclose any conflict of interest he might have with a news story he might cover, be it personal vendettas or otherwise. In a 2004 interview with Brian Lamb on C-SPAN (check this out before it’s purged from the archives next year), he made it clear to a gushy caller that he is, in fact, very biased. I don’t get the feeling that he’s making any effort to hide his own limitations; he’s simply getting the news out there, often harping on the incestuous nature of the media-industrial complex, occasionally stopping to point out a news source’s extra fingers and chromosomes.

In a nutshell, even the news monitors need to be monitored along with the players they love to hate. Come to think of it, even the writers of the blog you’re reading right now are just as deserving of critical scrutiny as everyone else.

RegoPark is a writer with a background in marketing communications. As prone to bias as anyone else, she has a friend who was made unintentionally famous by a Drudge Report story that was really a non-story. She votes Democrat, so far. She doesn’t like people to know she reads Drudge for fear of what they might think. She’s writing a novel about the relationship between PR and the alternative news media. She has a soft spot for Matt.

OK, this is silly. Laugh or cry, then move on…

As an update, over at The Huffington Post, things are pretty much the same as when they launched. There are a few more news updates and the blog is longer, but it still feels lame to me. It all seems canned. Not really a competitor to the Drudge Report.

One other thing I’m wondering is why they went with such a drab color scheme. The site might feel more lively if it looked more lively. And why are they using such awful black & white photos of the bloggers? I mean look at this guy.

–Update - Drudge had this image/story up there all day. I know he has a big issue with government invasiveness and this story must have really bugged him.

The Drudge Report was briefly in all-red panic mode as a plane violated DC airspace. The White House and Capitol were evacuated. Bad day for that pilot, good day for Drudge.

So, I’ve had a chance to check out The Huffington Post, which was supposed to be the Left/celebrity answer to the Drudge Report. But, I don’t see anything much like the Drudge Report there. In fact, the whole thing seems a bit lame and doesn’t keep my attention. Sure, Arianna got some big names and got Drudge’s man Breitbart to go in on the project. But that doesn’t automatically make the thing great. Perhaps with some time and refinement they can make it work. I’m not holding my breath.

In the past couple of days, Matt Drudge has stepped up his use of Google on the Drudge Report. He has added a Google web search box in the right column:

He’s also started testing out Google AdSense ads in his usual ad locations. These are the Google text ads found across the web on millions of websites (including Drudge Blog). They are mixed in with his usual ad broker banner ads:

Both of these new Google additions generate revenue. My guess is that he’s just testing the waters, so we may or may not see these hang around.

Drudge got a ton of mileage out of the IdolABCRocksFox story that he first broke 2 days ago. From the first tips/rumors Tuesday, through the breaking of the story on big media yesterday, to the ratings results this morning, it’s non-stop Idol action. It’s classic Drudge, right down to the signature upside down logo yesterday - although this is probably a more positive than negative story for the Idol show. Can’t beat free press coverage, even if your logo is upside down.

By RegoPark
Contributing Blogger

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post gets one thing right — the Drudge Report has, indeed, come of age. Or maybe buzz has gotten around that if you ask Drudge reasonably intelligent, nonconfrontational questions, you’ll get reasonably intelligent, nonconfrontational answers.

Now, all this can be vaguely troubling for a Drudge reader attracted to his site because he’s always been the flasher in the White House — albeit all he’s flashed is an Elian T-shirt in Janet Reno’s face at the White House Correspondents Dinner many moons back. What this means to me is that the mainstream media has moved past the muck of the old 64K question - is this journalism? - past the old Blumenthal lawsuit, past Lewinsky, past the old fedora schtick and thumb-in-nosing some people and brown-nosing others… to the point that when Matt does grant a rare television interview, I actually turn off the TV having learned something and respecting him more. It’s amazing what kind of journalistic gems can be mined when a subject isn’t fielding questions about his hat and his sex life.

While he did make a teensy bit of a dork of himself on Hannity & Colmes last February, Matt redeemed himself this week on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. Claiming that he feels like a “ten-year-old granddad” as he marks an entire decade of the Drudge Report, it was definitely a good day at the C-SPAN studio. (Check out this and previous Drudge interviews with a video search at C-SPAN. )

I don’t consider Matt Drudge to be particularly PR-savvy, but that’s for another entry. But he has mastered the Guerilla PR concept of positioning oneself as an expert. Once you’ve grown accustomed to Matt’s interview style, and consequently attuned to Matt’s limitations, you realize his reactions in interviews are very kneejerk, very rooted in pride and self-preservation. Knowing how ornery he can get on his radio show, particularly when he gets started on his pet peeve du jour — the words “blog” and “blogger”, which invariably launches a silly litany of rhymes like “frog” and “dog” — I was pleasantly surprised with how well Matt carried himself. It was ironic to watch him sit there calm, cool and collected while Brian Lamb got all crusty on us, interrupting a caller with a crochety lecture about getting his facts straight. (Matt made a valiant effort to hold back, but nope, he couldn’t restrain himself from saying “booger” on C-SPAN.)

I admit I did a double-take on Matt’s comment that his handy-dandy broadband antenna was “not very expensive — less than $100 a month.” Good to know he hasn’t outgrown the concept of money with his success. I suppose it’s very cost-effective for “institutional” use — someone who’s online enough during the day to justify the monthly bill probably needs to be locked up, and undoubtedly locked up someplace boring enough to use that cool little toy.

But the Drudge Report is an institution, and now even much of the mainstream media grudgingly agrees it’s an institution. And if Matt’s happy there and eating nutritious food, then that’s all that matters.

RegoPark is a pseudonym for a writer with a background in marketing communications. She is currently working on a novel about PR and the alternative media.