Is Matt Drudge silent because he’s being savvy, or is he silent because he’s NOT being savvy?
My observation of Matt Drudge thus far is that he knows publicity but not public relations. The news of him leaving the radio show has been around for a week, perhaps despite a news embargo (it leaked when his replacement on a local outlet expedited a press release). The news has now been picked up on Page Six and still no acknowledgment on the Drudge Report nor last Sunday’s radio show.
If he wanted to deflect further attention from the media — which he’s been eluding for awhile now — his best course of action would have been to post an announcement on the site as soon as the news leaked (if not before) and acknowledge it on last week’s radio show to diffuse the time bomb. Keeping an open line of communication with publics doesn’t necessarily mean baring one’s soul, but it can save lots of headaches. Unfortunately this is probably the last way to get the results he really wants…which, from all he’s alluded, is to be left alone to work on his site.
So the reason I’m following this with fascination is probably different from most of you. Why he’s leaving the radio show isn’t nearly as interesting as how he’s choosing to communicate the fact…the strategy or non-strategy he’s working right now. What raises my whiskers is not a public figure’s personal life, but how he or she chooses to interact with the media. One thing I’ll miss about the radio show is the raw, unedited monologue. As a PR person, I understand the intrinsic value of a sound bite. Yet the news consumer in me feels that quantity IS quality.
In any case, I can’t say it’s not getting interesting…Meanwhile, his rant last Sunday pretty much reflects what I’ve understood before (but expressed more humorously…check out the 10:00 segment on Drudge Radio Archives for the September 9th show)…
Enough already! Oh! And that’s just a snippet. I mean, that’s just a snippet. (Laughing) What is…Okay, one guy, sitting in front of a computer, with a WiFi connection. And all of this? Come on, give me a break. Snap out of it, guys! I mean, obviously there’s not enough news to report, so…you know, I guess they’re reporting on me. Obviously you know, a, a country of 300 million people is not fascinating enough and they’re, they’re, you know concentrating on little old me, sitting here with this mouse and this keyboard and this monitor…Come on! Not all that! The mania! The mania. Now that was from the, uh, Fox News media show. So I — are they trying to get me back on television, is that was it is, are they trying to seduce me, “The most powerful man in the world!†“The most powerful man in journalism, Matt Drudge!†(Chuckles) Come on! All right, yeah, the website’s interesting, I agree; I give it my all, all right! Cool! Fun! Welcome, jump in! But all of this? I mean, this is just – this is a little – this is a little much, guys!
(Replaying clip) “…terms that is what?â€â€œConvergence of gossip and trivia with politics…â€
 Aw, give me a break. And they’re still using that one, so I’ve gone from gossipmonger to blogger to linker to freak to whatever – what’s the new one? And 60 Minutes, I’m telling you, you come around here, I’ve got mace. I’m getting these threats from 60 Minutes, “We’re doing it with or without you.†Mace! Mace! Mike Wallace, I’ve got magnets for your heart pacer. Oh, yeah!  If-if this is the way they’re going to do it in ’08…It’s one guy with a computer and a website, it’s all this is, they got to snap out of their illusions here. Don’t have these corporate newsrooms with hundreds of people and hundreds of lawyers and hundreds of printing presses and hundreds of satellites and all- all these people. It’s not what this is. I-in fact, my success kind of shows how they’ve lost their way. They should be interesting! They – they should be dazzling! I-i-it should be a lot more provocative. It’s – it’s their failure that is leading to my – my success. I think that’s what it is. Uh – beyond my ability to move fast and to – you know, get headlines you’re not seeing yet. All right, fine. But all-all of this drama?
(Replaying clip) “…about the most powerful journalist in America. His website is the seventh most popular website in America, beating out the sites of the New York Times, the Washington Post and Fox News Channel. NBC’s Brian Williams says his site is America’s bulletin board and much more…â€
“Who is just about the most powerful journalist in America? Matt Drudge.â€
(Canned laughter)
(Laughing) Okay…All right, I’ll go back to Fox News, what the heck. That worked; that’s all they needed to do. Get me Roger Ailes; I’ll go back on. I don’t know what they’re up to, but all right, I guess I should take the flattery, yes, all right, thank you, I’m bowing. I’m bowing to Rupert Murdoch’s satellite dish! Thank you! Thank you, emperor. What is – what is the point of all that? All right, I guess they think that’s news. I guess by making me the most powerful man in journalism they think they’re doing news here. I quite don’t get it. I-I quite don’t get what they’re up to there. Maybe they’re not up to anything; maybe they’re just trying to fill, uh, a slow news period. But I don’t know. The problem is that it’s not a slow news period…â€
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One of those vignettes I’ll miss. Developing…
RegoPark is a freelance writer with a background in marketing communications who has recently completed a media novel. She can be reached at http://regopark.wordpress.com.
by RegoPark - 8:55 am
Oh gag me. Puke! I cringed when he launched into that spiel and actually muttered Oh No You’re NOT Going There Again but yes he did.
He might not know P.R. but he’s milking the publicity here — and it’s only growing, Rego — and at some point what’s the difference? And he’s loving it. It makes me think of that quote by Dorothy Parker that went something like if the press tells the truth about you, deny it, and if it prints a lie, don’t bother. In other words, work it so you’ll seem more interesting than you are.
Matt Drudge has never had someone come around and compete with him on his terms. What you have are folks who either start opinion-exclusive blogs, or journalists who start original-reporting news sites, and his is neither. The fastest way to compete with him directly would be to take every single headline he has and post it to your own site — but not link to him, link instead directly to the news outlets he’s linking to, and rewrite your own headline. And then post one original news item you yourself dug up. Voila. Instant Drudge competitor. Or you could play a bit more fair and cull all your own links to original reporting — but why, when he’s doing it for you? Use him the same way he uses news organizations that have already published work to “break” the same fricken stories and see how he likes it and give him a run for his own money.
Does this mean that Matty won’t be doing any type
of “new show” for the new Fox Business Channel?
Layla, you bring up several points, two of which actually relate to this particular post, which I’ll address one by one.
As far as last Sunday’ rant, to me it’s entertaining in a way that most talk radio isn’t. In fact, he’s usually unintentionally funny, even if some of it is a public persona. I think he’d be a curmudgeonly pain in the ass if he stayed on-air at age 70, but as a non-journalist who has no investment in any political party or movement, I can enjoy him without any inner conflict. Life’s not fair, the media’s not fair, and Drudge is often funny. There it is.
There’s a big difference between knowing HOW to generate and propagate attention and knowing how to get the right KIND of attention that doesn’t interfere with one’s life or work or create unnecessary misunderstanding. Some of it’s within his control and some of it isn’t. He’s a household name, but is he in control of his message? Is the type of publicity he’s getting really helping him? Is he effectively protecting his privacy? Are some of his choices undermining his true intentions? Some of his actions and word choices have helped and some didn’t and don’t.
Actually people HAVE and DO compete with him, and the first inkling I had that he might be news was when I saw an ad about Raw Story looking for freelancers to compete with Matt Drudge. Two major impediments would-be rivals find are Matt’s brand identity and their own mistake of being too narrowly centered (particularly centered as a Drudge competitor). You can argue that his longtime assistant, Andrew Breitbart, is filling much of the need you’re referring to. I see the Drudge Report as himself admits he doesn’t know how he’d break into it today.
But let’s work with your idea, Layla: what stops you from executing this idea RIGHT NOW? That person needs to be willing to put in the time to do it completely alone with very little overhead. He or she would need to have the ear of key people in the mainstream media but nevertheless be distinct FROM them. Does what he represents have enough staying power for a competitor to successfully make a living doing it indefinitely? Most people, whether career journalists or aspiring citizen journalists, have a different bundle of ambitions, goals, attitude and philosophy than Matt Drudge. It would be nice if, like the Avis slogan, someone would be happy to say “We’re number 2 and we try harder.†But Drudge represents the best and the worst of the Internet’s golden age, from a business standpoint, most would-be Drudges wouldn’t want to be pigeonholed in a way that could render them antiquated in five years. A truly independent entity really needs to have a unique selling proposition in and of itself. I see the Drudge Report as being a single link in the evolution of new media. He made money doing what he loves, and there’s a choice involved in everything: whether or not to take a job offered at MSN, whether or not to continue a Fox news show when you’re not allowed to do exactly what you want. I don’t know if you can successfully map a strategy to compete with Drudge because you can’t map the same course.
I think you’re getting carried away here into the realm of too much mind-reading speculation about him “loving it†(particularly NOW versus early in his career) and “working†publicity and not being able to handle a competitor. You’re touching on something that I want us to move away from…something of mine that got taken out of context in New York’s Intelligencer column this week. I want to move away from viewing Drudge as the media character he’s morphed into. I see this as an entrepreneurial issue. Let’s look at decisions that every entrepreneur or public figure has to make, and start the analysis from that foundation. How high a profile can you have before it affects your quality of life and ability to perform and enjoy your work? What are your long-term goals and how do your current choices fit into them? Drudge’s game plan, from everything I’ve gleaned, is to do what he does until it ends…until people “might get tired of the Drudge sensibility†as he told Washington Post in 2005, or until a computer glitch or universal charge for content makes him irrelevant. “One day you’ll look back and remember how hot Matt Drudge was,†he told Radar in 2003. “I’m not going to be bitter about it.†It seems to me that the game plan is to keep on trucking but not draw undue attention to himself. He didn’t ask for the new wave of publicity that sprouted from the Halperin/Harris book last fall. He’s ignored 60 Minutes (as he’s said on-air), New York (as Weiss testified) and apparently the Wall Street Journal reporter who interviewed me last year. How can you distinguish deliberate media manipulation from the desire for privacy? You can’t.
Jon: I’m not sure how familiar you are with his Fox show, but he actually ended up eating a little crow as part of his separation agreement. He went out saying “Over my dead website!†and a Fox spokesperson called his attitude unprofessional, only for him later to say later that “in a moment of anger, I said some things I regret about the innovative Fox News Channelâ€. Repeated through his book Drudge Manifesto is the phrase “Legal terms of my separation insist that I not disparage it.†He usually doesn’t push the envelope with Fox as far as he did Sunday night. On the whole, radio has been a much better medium for him and if he’s not doing that anymore, I can’t imagine he’d return to television. He admitted from the onset of the show that “I don’t shave, and I’m grumpy and fidgety.†I’m sure there’d have to be an understanding that Drudge could do exactly what he wanted, and that doesn’t make for lasting TV. I don’t know if he has a diagnosable condition, but he’s always had trouble sitting still and has visible tics…I don’t think his public persona is a valuable enough commodity for Fox or anyone else to overlook that.
Drudge has no problem using exclusively the work of other people to create his headlines, photos — basically the entire content of his page. He recognizes no such thing as copyright when it comes to online content if there is no charge for it. He himself does not charge to view his site. By his own rules, it’s entirely fair game to take everything off his page and run it with slightly modified headlines as your own, in real time, as your own news outlet. Is it fair? It doesn’t matter, that’s the way it is now and he set the precedent. And it would certainly be fair game for someone else to break in using, literally, Drudge’s news aggregating as their own, combined with one or two bona fide original scoops a year. That’s how it works now and that’s obviously, as Drudge might say, the Future.
Yes, it IS fair by his standards, though as I said, not necessarily a smart business model for a competitor. Just because someone makes a fortune opening up a click-and-mortar selling tumbleweeds doesn’t mean that’s what YOU need to do. And yes, Drudge has said something to the effect of leaving this to the free market.
Whether it’s fair or good or not, Drudge has a head start in brand equity. NOT that I think he’s going to rule the roost forever, but that’s for another topic…which we’re once again getting off.
Anyway, keep in mind that the URL you have reached is not KissDrudge’sButt.com. This should be no sudden revelation.
My prediction is that he is going to do a webcast or “podcast” on his buddy’s Breibart website, breibart.tv. They are already doing a live show with 2 anchors.
All I am saying is no one has come along and taken Drudge’s model for breaking out and applied it the same way he did. They come online, but they launch their sites in the traditional way you would launch your own press — which is not what Drudge did/does. They publish blogs of their opinions. Or, more recently, they come on as reporters launching sites with all-original reporting content. Drudge never did either. He uses the work of other news publications as his own — he’s basically operating like the managing editor of a print newspaper, only the managing editor of a print newspaper is limited to picking the front-page news stories and photos he/she runs from the content either produced by the publication’s reporters and photographers or from the news services the publication has paid to use. Drudge has no such limitations — he’s got the entire media working for him. He has excellent news judgement, but so do many managing editors whose choices are limited and cannot just pick and pull in real time what others have produced. Yes it’s not unlike broadcast news, but it’s gone farther. And I’m just underscoring here that everyone else is still playing by the traditional rules, they’re not seeing what Drudge did and how he broke out, and that’s their mistake. But frankly, Drudge does not have enough original content and, increasingly, the few original “scoops” he does runs a year are not solid. Honestly, Rego, anyone with the talent to break even one or two solid bona fide original content scoops a year while otherwise having the same aggragated news he does will be the first real threat to his status, name brand be damned, that’s how it happens in the news business. Drudge is the evidence.
Nathanael: That’s a great idea! Except let me share why I’m unsure about that:
(1) Breitbart said in an e-mail to Philip Weiss of New York that he hadn’t spoken to Drudge in a year (which probably just means they haven’t gotten around to it, not a falling out, considering all the Breitbart links on Drudge. Breitbart’s still “rising”…I’m not sure Drudge would want to work for the person who’s worked for him.
(2) The amount of hours Drudge puts into the site is staggering, and he travels 30% of the time. That’s probably a major factor in his decision not to do radio.
I CAN see Drudge making occasional appearances on Breitbart TV if their professional relationship continues, but not a regular commitment…
Layla: I think we agree on a few things:
Drudge is not doing that much original news anymore, and the news aggregate is something that theoretically anyone could do.
People who have tried to ape Drudge so far have lacked something — be it vision, a certain skill set, a USP, or in SOME cases comparable news judgment.
Drudge CAN be outdone.
What I think we disagree on is:
I wonder whether his news model is becoming antiquated…I see him as a separate link on the evolution of new media.
I believe as the next few years progress, people will tire of the Drudge sensibility — not only the brand and the reliability issue, but also the notion that faster means better. I predict that the public will be much less receptive to a news aggregate that moves at the speed of light.
The Drudge Report is one person, one vision, one mission. For that model to succeed, everyone on the team needs to be very, very mission-centered and committted. Combine that with the factors above, and I think it’s something that can work in theory but not in practice.
I get your point, but I don’t think it’s that simple to “neutralize” Drudge…whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. He’ll sunset, but most likely for entirely different reasons.