drudge blog

I guess it’s time for the world to potentially end again…Drudge style….

Seriously, though, the New Orleans situation is dire. Our hearts go out to those affected.

By RegoPark
Contributing Writer

Today’s Drudge Report posts a story about the woman whose videotaped gang beating was the subject of Matt’s radio show two Sundays ago and my entry a few posts ago (Don’t Let Him Be Misunderstood). Sorry I can’t link directly on this computer, but as part of his commentary on the underside of the Internet, Matt played an audio of a woman who, according to the person filming, reportedly “snitched” on the wrong person. The short version of the story is that it was played on the local news and the victim saw herself and notified police.

Contrary to claims, the woman survived the beating and was punished not for being a tattletale, but for dissing the wrong guy.

While Drudge is clearly mentioned in the linked story, I don’t get the feeling that Matt is gleefully claiming credit for his role in facilitating justice. Had he really wanted to shamelessly toot his horn, I suppose he would have flashed his police alarm on the site. It’s one of many links on the page, toward the bottom.

Matt Drudge is using Breitbart.com to link to many of his wire stories now. So, he’ll be giving a tremendous amount of traffic and potential ad revenue to Breitbart.com…to his partner and pal. It’s very close to just bringing it all “in house” instead of linking to the story on MyWay, Yahoo! or others as he’s always done. Matt would probably run the wire-driven site himself if he had time. But this is pretty close and a major change in the way he does business.

By RegoPark
Contributing Weblogger

While the “citizen journalist” term was coined long ago, the news networks have caught onto the concept that anyone can contribute news coverage worthy of dissemination. CNN used the term the other day in a call for live video of Hurricane Katrina. An ABC news affiliate was doing something similar back in July.

As Drudge once said, Anyone from anywhere can report anything.

I’ll have to research it a bit more later, but it looks like Drudge’s old right hand man has fired up his own news website. Breitbart.com. Drudge linked to a hurricane story there tonight. Of course, the Breitbart.com server is bogged down at the moment…possibly not fully scaled to handle being “Drudged” yet…

By RegoPark
Contributing Writer

Since we don’t have the benefit of a Matt Drudge blog (that’s us, thank you very much), the attitude or opinion behind the linked headline on any given day’s Drudge Report is conjecture and speculation. One reason I tune into Matt’s radio show — even though I’m no fan of talk radio — is that it’s fun to monitor the Drudge Report’s daily links and see if the vibe I think I’m getting matches his own take on a story. But I find that Drudge site viewers and broadcast listeners look for what they want to see and listen for what they want to hear. Frankly, anyone leaning in any direction other than left of center was going to be demonized for being the first to report on a book that says Chelsea Clinton was conceived by rape. However we feel about the author or his intentions, it is newsworthy that someone with any remote connection to Bill Clinton would choose to share these allegations in a book and risk a broad range of consequences. The fact that Matt Drudge was “on” the story does not mean he is insensitive to someone’s pain or that he gleefully bore those tidings. But either you’re willing to consider this possibility, or you’re not. As with any other household media name, after awhile everyone has decided how they feel about Drudge, what his true modus operandi is, his role in a purported right-wing conspiracy, and the agenda behind today or tomorrow’s Drudge headline.

So I can’t imagine this week’s link to an example of the Internet’s underside is going to be interpreted in its intended context. “The Internet can go either way,” Matt said last Sunday night. “It’s going to tilt.” Not only is violent porn and grisly live footage of just about anything uploadable for our viewing pleasure, but some people have really upped the ante in the “brazenness” category. The link I’m talking about is to a video of a raw, vicious gang beating of a woman who snitched on the wrong person…enthusiastically taped by a participant in the madding crowd.

I fear that the only message will come out is that Drudge has “come to a new low in sleaze” or that he has himself “set a new precedent in shock journalism”. Which is a frustrating shame, because given the chance, something as simple as a Drudge link can powerfully communicate a philosophical issue as effectively as a photograph. How much bad should be taken with the good? Can — and should — material like this be regulated? What can be considered “freedom of the press” now that everyone can have their own Web presence and communicate a message or archive video and audio material for the world to access? I don’t see that Matt has made his own current opinions on Internet regulation clear. My own interpretation of this week’s links and radio comments is that he’s wrestling with that issue right now — not trying to effect shock or turn a political tide.

Unfortunately, this is bound to be misunderstood. When all is said and done, people will swallow what they want to digest.

By RegoPark
Contributing Weblogger

I promise, that’ll be the most tasteless title I’ll ever post here. It was yesterday in 1998 that Bill Clinton admitted that there was, in fact, merit to a certain screaming headline on the Drudge Report.

Now, I voted for Bill both times. I was one of the 15 American people who didn’t believe the hype about that woman, Miss Lewinsky, until he appeared on-camera with that everybody-else-culpa confession. I don’t think the transgressions were time-sensitive and security-sensitive enough to justify the time and taxes spent in the Starr investigation. At the time, I assumed most politicians screwed around and didn’t know what the fuss was all about. Heck, I don’t even recall knowing who Matt was until years after the fact. (I was taking a vacation from TV around that time, so I never saw his smiling mug on Nightline.) All I knew was that Bill Clinton was the most tightly scrutinized president in the history of the United States from Inauguration Day on…and surely, nobody who busted his rear that hard to get to the Oval Office would be that stupid and self-destructive.

But as luck and a project would have it, I carefully studied the matter retrospectively from all angles. I now feel that whatever Matt Drudge’s limitations, there was, in fact, a security issue that justified the investigation into this seemingly private affair.

Drudge/Clinton Trivia #1: Matt’s mother, who is a liberal attorney, volunteered in the Clinton White House in the first part of his term. She turned on him, though, according to Matt’s 2003 interview in Radar. (What good Jewish mom supports a president who calls her little boy Sludge?)

Drudge/Clinton Trivia #2: Bill Clinton was a Rhodes scholar. Monica Lewinsky was the valedictorian of Bel Air Prep School. Matt Drudge barely graduated from high school.

Anyway, our boy’s frying bigger fish now. For what it’s worth, happy anniversary, Drudge. You made it happen.

And happy anniversary, Bill and Monica. You made it happen.

By RegoPark
Contributing Writer

Apparently we have been discovered by Gawker, who has reprinted and linked Matt Drudge quotes from the DrudgeBlog Quiz (along with others from other sources). And yes, he’s uttered even funnier indiscretions.

At least some of you find the “Matt Drudge Ignores Me” running gag amusing, which I’ve found dumb but innocuous enough, in which Jessica Coen sends repeated IMs to Matt ranging from “Happy Hannukah” to “Did you get that photo taken at Glamour Shots?” As I recall, she also reprints bogus “Drudge sighting” rumors in which he allegedly walked around in public in New York with an unattractive woman. Whatever.

Most of the Drudge quotes are funny. I do take exception at presenting the second phrase, from 1998, for us to “enjoy”:

“I was a stutterer. I had a twitch inside all the time—a lot of raw energy. I was lonely…I still am.”

There is nothing funny, fair or classy about rubbing loneliness or personal development issues in someone’s face. Of all the archives I’ve accumulated on Drudge, I have never seen any evidence of him being malicious. Indiscreet, careless, and stupid sometimes, yes. (That’s why he’s a pet project of mine — he’s a fascinating PR case study.)

When I posted that quote, along with others in the DrudgeBlog quiz, I was trying to get participants to really think about how much they know about Matt Drudge. The assembled sentences are the literary equivalent of a police lineup. I wasn’t inviting anyone to make fun of the “lonely” quote, as I’m sure anyone who read it understands.

But it seems to me — sorry, hold on, gotta fish that burr out of my buttocks here…

…that Gawker’s “Quotable Drudge” was in a less than honorable context and suggests that we ought to get a chuckle out of Drudge complaining of loneliness.

I’m critical and teasing of Matt when it’s called for, but when you get past the hype and the crap and the layers upon layers of media interpretation, he’s actually someone worth paying attention to. And certainly worth a modicum of respect, dignity and compassion.