Just to make sure everyone’s clear on my M.O., let me elaborate on last post’s comment discussion. 

While, yes, it is Matt Drudge I blog about in this space, I don’t necessarily share his philosophy on what constitutes a legitimate source.  Most of my research is a by-product of a book project that’s recently been completed. With few exceptions, I have all of the procurable archive of Matt Drudge’s press coverage in my possession — along with those of individuals whose careers or lives have been touched by him (e.g. Michael Isikoff, David Brock, Jeannette Walls, Ann Coulter, Dan Mathews, Lucianne Goldberg).  I’ve copied them all onto a Word document in which his actual quotes are highlighted.  Because in my opinion, you can tell the most about an individual by what he or she volunteers to the press.  I generally compare and contrast different reporters’ accounts of the same incidents and put very little stock in paraphrasing of quotes or subjective assessments of a subject’s apartment layout or physical appearance. (As you can surmise, I’m a big fan of raw interviews and glean much of my notes from Drudge’s radio comments.)

For the purpose of this particular blog, I myself do not post anonymous tips on here or statements based solely on unconfirmed gossip. 

That said, Andrew Breitbart is the only person who has ever worked for the Drudge Report. In the early years of the site, outsourcing or hiring staff wasn’t an option. Aside from the original subscription revenue and money from a column with Wired and AOL, Drudge didn’t make serious money until around 1999 when the website began to carry advertising. Today, he has the time and the technology he didn’t have in the lean years when he was filing reports from pay phones. 

As far as Drudge paying or otherwise reimbursing sources: that’s within the realm of possibility. He stated in a 1998 Playboy interview that “checkbook journalism has broken some great stories” and that he’d theoretically be willing to pay a source, though he never had at that time).  It’s also outside the realm of probability.  Not only are his special reports infrequent now, but he given the massive amount of contact attempts daily and sources perfectly willing to leak something for free.

In any case, it will be interesting to see the ramifications Breitbart’s career will have on the Drudge Report.  Will we see links to Breitbart TV, and if so, how frequently? How great will be the proportion of Breitbart links — or new media links in general — to the rest of the daily news aggregate on Drudge? The two men have assumed two very different business models: Breitbart TV is affiliated with a parent company and employs staff.  The Drudge Report is a self-contained news aggregate that remains simple enough to be manageable.  More on this later. 

As I’ve said before, Breitbart left Matt’s employ for a few months in 2005 work for the newly launched Huffington Post — returning to Arianna Huffington, for whom he had previously worked as a researcher.  Now that he is well on his way to extend his brand (having co-authored a book, et al) his departure wouldn’t be surprising. There will come a point when going out on his own will be the logical stepping stone. It’s therefore natural that people would speculate about Andrew’s leaving, so that kind of insider gossip, if it’s intrinsically worth anything, carries little value in that context.  It’s more like “anticipatory hearsay”. Either he hasn’t said anything about leaving, or he’s already gone. 

What I know, right now, is that neither Drudge nor Breitbart is linking permanently to the other’s site (though a Breitbart story is currently on the Drudge page). But I’m not reading anything notable into that right now.  In my mind, the soap opera’s not so much the drama that may or may not be transpiring behind the scenes, but its impact on a simple site with the revenue and influence of a large media outlet.  Pay attention to the man behind the curtain!