Matt Drudge Totally Explained

Everything about Matt Drudge totally explained

Matthew Nathan Drudge (born October 27, 1966) is the proprietor of the Drudge Report website.

Early years

Matthew Drudge, raised in Takoma Park, Maryland, near Washington, DC, is an only child. His parents are Jewish liberal-Democrats who both worked for the federal government. His father Robert Drudge, a former social worker who owns the reference site www.refdesk.com divorced when he was six. Drudge went to live with his mother. In his book Drudge Manifesto, Drudge reports that he "failed his Bar Mitzvah", and graduated 341st out of a class of 355 from Northwood High School in 1984, thus giving himself, in his words, a "more than adequate curriculum vitae for a post at 7-Eleven". Andrew Breitbart helps run the Drudge Report website. Drudge met Breitbart in Los Angeles the 1990s when Breitbart was a self-described "untrained D student." He now runs Breitbart.com, but still helps run Drudge's website from Los Angeles. Drudge frequently links to Breitbart's site, but doesn't get paid for this service, although it does provide Breitbart with income. Drudge has said that he holds no financial stake in Breitbart.com nor does he receive any compensation from its founder. Fox News charged him with breach of contract, but, after Drudge issued an apology, Fox issued a statement calling the parting "amicable".

Radio talk show

Drudge hosted a Sunday night talk radio show—"The only time anyone will let me on the air," he claimed. The show, which was also named the "Drudge Report," was syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks. He guest hosted for the conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Drudge gained radio notoriety in the early 2000s by becoming a constant reference for news material on Limbaugh's radio show. He was often acknowledged by conservative Michael Savage as a source of topics for The Savage Nation.
Drudge left his position as radio host with Premiere effective September 30, 2007. He was replaced by WLW's Bill Cunningham.

Book

Drudge wrote a book with Julia Phillips in 2000 titled Drudge Manifesto. The book features a transcript of a Q&A session conducted at the National Press Club on June 2, 1998, which lays out Drudge's . It also contains copies of e-mails sent to Drudge by his readers, dialogues between Drudge and his cat, and extensive descriptions of parties Drudge has attended and how the celebrities there reacted to him. A review by G. Beato of the Washington Post summarised the book as follows:

Indeed, while Drudge Manifesto runs 247 pages, it takes a lot of filler to reach that length: 40 blank pages; 31 pages of fan mail; 24 pages of Drudge Report reruns; 13 pages of a Q & A that Drudge did at the National Press Club three years ago; 10 pages of titles and other book boilerplate; six pages of quotes from Drudge's favorite philosophers (Monica, Madonna, etc.); four pages of a chat transcript; three pages that include nothing but a large zero; two pages that include nothing but a large numeral 1; one page that includes nothing but a tiny zero; and one page that includes Drudge's favorite Web sites. Which leaves, in the end, 112 pages of new material, including nine pages of poetry.

Influence

In their 2006 book The Way To Win, Mark Halperin and John Harris report that Ken Mehlman, the Republican Party chairman, kind of brags (as CNN host Howard Kurtz puts it) about utilizing the Drudge channel. They also write that:

"Drudge, with his droll Dickensian name, wasn't the only media or political agent whose actions led to John Kerry's defeat. But his role placed him at the center of the game -- a New Media World Order in which Drudge was the most potent player in the process and a personifications of the dynamic that did Kerry in."

In 2006, TIME Magazine named Drudge one of the 100 most influential people in the world, describing the Drudge Report as:

"A ludicrous combination of gossip, political intrigue and extreme weather reports ... still put together mostly by the guy who started out as a convenience-store clerk."

ABC News concluded that the Drudge Report sets the tone for national political coverage. The article states that:

"Republican operatives keep an open line to Drudge, often using him to attack their opponents."

In October 2006, Washington Post editor Len Downie, speaking at the Online News Association's annual convention in Washington, D.C., stated "Our largest driver of traffic is Matt Drudge."
On October 22, 2007, New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg wrote that Republican and Democratic presidential candidates including Hillary Clinton were cooperating with Drudge and "working harder than ever to get favorable coverage for their candidates — or unfavorable coverage of competitors — onto the Drudge Report’s home page, knowing that television producers, radio talk show hosts and newspaper reporters view it as a bulletin board for the latest news and gossip." Rutenberg stated that Nielsen/NetRatings shows that the Drudge Report gets three million unique visitors over the course of a month, or approximately 1% of the population of the United States.

Persona and criticism

Income and lifestyle

A story by Business 2.0 magazine from April 2003 estimated that Drudge's website received $3,500 a day in advertising revenues. Subtracting his relatively minor server costs, the magazine estimated that The Drudge Report website grossed $800,000 a year. An article in The Miami Herald from September 2003 said Drudge estimated he earns $1.2 million a year from his website and radio show. During a April 30, 2004 appearance on C-SPAN, Drudge confirmed that he earns over $1 million. For many years, Drudge was based out of his one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood. Today, Drudge maintains the website from his two properties in Miami — his $1.4 million Mediterranean-style stucco house on Rivo Alto Island, In updating the site, he reportedly monitors multiple television news channels and a number of websites on several computers in his home office.
In 2003, Drudge faced criticism for describing ABC reporter Jeffrey Kofman as "openly gay" in the headline "ABC News Reporter Who Filed Troops Complaint Story — Openly Gay Canadian" after Kofman interviewed anti-war soldiers in Iraq. Drudge's critics, like gay American writer and national talk radio host Michelangelo Signorile, point to the allegations of homosexuality levelled at Drudge himself by David Brock of Media Matters in his memoir Blinded by the Right, and by columnist Jeannette Walls in her book Dish. However, Drudge denied Walls's claim that he's gay, telling the Miami New Times in 2001 that "I go to straight bars, I go to gay bars. [Walls] never said there was sex; she said there was dating. She never had enough to go that far." Drudge also discussed suing actor Alec Baldwin with his lawyer, after Baldwin claimed, during a Howard Stern interview, that Drudge had propositioned him. In 2005, Drudge told The Sunday Times "No, I’m not gay. I was nearly married a few years ago."

Political views

Drudge frequently champions himself as an independent populist, free from the influences of corporations, advertisers and editors. When his site reached the one billion page view mark during 2002, Drudge summarized his activities in these broad terms: "In every state and nearly every civilized nation in the developed world, readers know where to go for action and reaction of news -- at least one day ahead... Free from any corporate concerns, there are simply too many to thank since the site's inception in 1994. This new attempt at the old American experiment of full freedom in reporting is ever exciting. Those in power have everything to lose by individuals who march to their own rules."
In 2001, Drudge told the Miami New Times that:
Drudge has attempted to distinguish his political beliefs from those of the Republican party, arguing that his politics more accurately reflect libertarianism. In a 2005 interview with The Sunday Times Drudge described his politics:

Comments by journalists

Drudge has been called "the Walter Cronkite of his era" by Halperin and Harris, "the country's reigning mischief-maker" by Todd Purdum of the The New York Times, and "the kind of bold, entrepreneurial, free-wheeling, information-oriented outsider we need far more of in this country," by Camille Paglia. Michael Isikoff of Newsweek said "Drudge is a menace to honest, responsible journalism. And to the extent that he's read and people believe what they read, he's dangerous."

References and notes

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