Matt Drudge's Drudge Report is still relevant, much to my dismay.
ABC News recently cited the Web site in a story. Unbelievable. I don't suppose the network is familiar with his work.
Forbes, in yet another inane list, named him fourth on The Web Celeb 25. Is there a department of stupid lists at Forbes? Then again, it's great marketing for the magazine.
Drudge's standing on this list doesn't make any sense. Why is he ahead of Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch? All of these bloggers have way more influence these days than Drudge.
Drudge's heyday was at the zeitgeist of the Clinton impeachment battle. Love him or hate him, he's had an impact on popular culture. He's also single-handedly kept the fedora industry from going belly up. American Heritage details his rise to power in an interesting article.
But the country has changed quite a bit since then. The Democrats now control Congress. Even the most strident conservative bloggers are now beginning to admit that the mainstream media does get stuff right from time to time.
Matt Drudge, though, will continue to have his fans for some time to come, particularly among conservatives.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-26-2007 @ 5:32PM
John Holman said...
I read Drudge almost every day, but not because I like him.
If he had a flat out in front of my house I'd walk out there for these reasons: to steal his jack, super glue his doors shut, puncture the rest of his tires, put a potato in his exhaust pipe, and spit on his fast food.
1-27-2007 @ 4:19AM
l herfel said...
"to steal his jack, super glue his doors shut, puncture the rest of his tires, put a potato in his exhaust pipe, and spit on his fast food."
Wow. You belong in prison.
I terms of the post:
I have never heard of those other people. I suspect they are no where near Drudge in terms of web hits are they? Drudge is still extraordinarily relevant, I trust him more than the liberal media any day.
1-29-2007 @ 7:25PM
charles said...
It is easiest to criticize those that are ahead of us. Do I hear a bit of envy in your writing?
1-27-2007 @ 10:57AM
Jeff Jarvis said...
Well, thanks. But last I checked, Drudge was the no. 1 referrer to the Washington Post and NY Times. That's influence.
1-29-2007 @ 6:57AM
Ben said...
Drudge is relevant because he gets read.
"010,149,836 [hits] IN PAST 24 HOURS"
Pretty much any blogger out there would kill to get that many hits in a month, let alone on a sunday.