Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The Drudge Report

Matt Drudge is under attack again by the some of the media outlets. They say he is a source for funneling incorrect info to the world. The government feeds him emails of whatever info they wish to "leak" and then gauge the response. They claim politicians feed rival bad info to demean their opponents. They claim he is a loose cannon that writes whatever he wants without verifying the sources.
According to Alexa, an Amazon ranking of Web traffic, the Drudge Report is the 86th most trafficked site in the United States and the seventh most popular site for news. Just by linking to a news story or blog item, Drudge can drive more than 100,000 unique visitors to a Web site. For small news organizations or independent bloggers, which sustain themselves on advertising revenue, a link on Drudge can mean money in the bank, upping the incentive for reporters to post opposition research.
Sometimes in the rush to make a splash, the truth can be lost along the way. Drudge's April headline "McCain Sings: 'Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran'" was a quote taken from Harper's Georgetown Times news story. But as the accompanying video showed, McCain never uttered those exact words. As the Associated Press correctly reported, he said the following, before declining to directly answer a question about whether he would attack Iran: "That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, 'Bomb Iran.'" Then he sang, "Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb, anyway, ah ..." And he trailed off.
It didn't matter, of course. The oppo had done its job. The world believed what the Drudge headline declared. It was just another day in the 2008 campaign.
Hearing these complaints coming from the media sounds more like a bout of jealousy.

1 comment:

sumo said...

He's an odd duck.