(The following is a response I have just posted to SEM Report Card. This is one of those times where I worry I’ll be dismissed as a Drudge cheerleader. But because I have worked in media, I felt a prompt and thorough rejoinder was in order.)
http://www.semreportcard.com/the-drudge-reports-dirty-little-secret-criminal-or-just-unethical/
You are absolutely correct that the offered site stats should not be taken at face value. Nor would I would put it absolutely past Matt Drudge to fudge-stimate figures. That said, after researching and monitoring Drudge’s press and career for a few years, I haven’t really “caught” Drudge violating any moral absolutes…no matter how troubling or controversial some of his journalistic practices may be.
1. This article’s title is based on a logical fallacy: the false dilemma that either Matt Drudge is breaking the law or he’s unethical. Let’s first determine how much control an Intermedia client (Drudge) has, how much he’s exercising, and what he COULD do if he wanted to eliminate all appearance of impropriety.
2. When I’ve been contacted by the press for insight on Matt Drudge, I’ve encouraged them to scrutinize Intermarket’s role in the Drudge Report logistics. Are we to suppose that a new media third party operates its business on the honor system, taking client-provided statistics without independently gauging them? As someone who has worked for years in advertising and PR (including media buying), I doubt that Intermarkets or professionals in any communications-related industry are victims of Drudge chicanery. That doesn’t mean I think Intermarkets is guilty of anything. They are responsible to their advertising clients, so they communicate to their publics with information that those publics find relevant. There are different players in this game with different business aims. They are not responsible for one another. We need to shake the paradigm that the public face behind the Drudge Report manages, is directly responsible for, and aware of, the ad presentation we see and his vendors’ promotional attempts.
3. From the standpoint of DR advertisers, the currently stats are reliable where it counts the most: we have at least a sense of the volume of visitors who are spending time on the site, exposed to the advertisers’ messages. Even if a DR reader is following or even held up by a link or a refresh-in-progress, that visitor is spending the “quality time” that gives DR ad slots or interstitials much of their value. When Intermarkets promotes the Drudge Report in the referenced press release, they are really targeting their own audience…with information relevant to their specific goals. Let’s face it: media is an evolving, and sometimes muddy, science. You can’t learn fixed formulas in a college advertising class and assume you’ve got all the skills you’ll ever need to accurately assess website traffic.
4. The Daily Reckoning/Economic Policy Monitor link cites Alexa as its source. I don’t accept Alexa as a reliable measure of web traffic, whether it benefits Drudge or not. Are there other stats available or a more accurate way of gauging web traffic? Is there a standard we can all agree on?
5. What is the uncited source about the Drudge Report billing advertisers by the number of ad impressions? If we’re going to call Matt Drudge on ethics, we need to be more concrete and scrupulous than he is. Don’t just say “a source informs me…” Just because he plays those games doesn’t mean it behooves his critics to.
6. Let’s be clear about assigning responsibility to the right person. Intermarkets issued the latest press release regarding DR’s traffic numbers. Intermarkets markets itself; Matt Drudge is seldom proactive about self-promotion at this stage in his career. He is certainly not responsible for writing Intermarket’s press copy and probably didn’t formally approve those press materials… nor would he have control over that site’s web copy. Drudge mostly limits “reports’ on his traffic stats when there is a historical traffic high, in the same way he occasionally posts squibs on the site’s anniversary and other milestones.
7. The “Drudge Report team” is one individual, Matt Drudge, who, at different times in his career, has worked 8 to 14 hours a day. He has had only one peripherally involved assistant, who has put in roughly 26 hours a week and who now has his own site (breitbart.com). Then there are the vendors he outsources to keep his site running and his business going. Drudge is sloppy; he is impatient: he doesn’t mess with anything he doesn’t have time for. He told the Miami Herald in 2003, “I’m probably the worst marketer out there…I just don’t care. I put my energy into the site.” From all the tangible press contacts I’ve found in the three years I’ve researched Matt Drudge and monitored his coverage, this is the attitude he uniformly projects. He doesn’t micromanage. He wants his business to be as simple as possible so he can go after his next news fix.
8. Drudge’s linking practices and siren alerts existed long before he began to carry advertising in 1999. They are the entire raison d’etre of his website, which by my calculation operated for at least four years without ad revenue. (I haven’t pinpointed the exact date when the 1994-launched e-mail subscription transitioned into an independent web presence). The siren alerts are only occasional, and one of the cheap effects on a very rudimentary web format (he utilized an old version of Netscape). Were he truly motivated by marketing, he would “alarm” us with greater frequency.
9. I do want to address the “refresh” controversy here. The nature of his site dictates that it be constantly updated. Drudge may not need “new” stats, but he does need constantly new headlines and information to remain current. Setting anything but the most aggressive refresh mode available is counterintuitive.
10. Think a bit about the word choice: Drudge “already command(s) an overwhelming audience size, generating a massive amount of page views naturally!” Are you sure we really know what Drudge’s intentions are and whether the left hand knows what the right hand is doing?, Who, in fact, are the suspects in this case?
11. Finally, the most important question of all: if you were a basically honest webmaster in Matt Drudge’s position, what would you do? What could you do? What should you do in terms of quantifying web visit statistics, and what are the minimal moral expectations should Drudge readers and advertisers have, knowing all the facts? I would rather that marketing and media specialists present facts within the area of your expertise and not jump to conclusions about intentions they cannot know or measure. I think that there is more to this picture than meets the eye.
by RegoPark - 3:47 pm
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