drudgebak

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">drudge1116</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his conservative media allies have been aggressively promoting Crisis of Character, an upcoming book by former Secret Service officer Gary J. Byrne that purports to reveal the inside story of serving under President Clinton and then-first lady Hillary Clinton. But rather than provide insight into their character and leadership style, Byrne is just the latest in a line of authors to package unverified gossip about the Clintons in book form.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Media Matters obtained Crisis of Character ahead of its June 28 publication date. Before its official release the book is already receiving the familiar red carpet treatment for anti-Clinton books in conservative media.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And it’s not a coincidence that Crisis of Character is being promoted by conservative outlets like the New York Post, the Drudge Report, the Daily Mail, Breitbart.com, Trump ally Alex Jones, and on Fox News. The National Enquirer, one of the only publications to endorse Trump, promoted the book and called Byrne “daring.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Writing on Facebook about the conservative media coverage of his book, Byrne said, “I must have done something right in my life” to be “in big red font on front page of Drudge’s website.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sean Hannity and Trump promoted the book and used it as a springboard to attack Clinton’s fitness for office on the June 8 edition of Hannity's Fox News program. After listing some of the main attack narratives from the book -- claiming Clinton is “impulsive” and lacks “the temperament” to be president -- Hannity asked Trump, “You think the media is fair in their coverage of that versus how they cover you?” Trump, of course, gladly swung at the softball, claiming the book has gotten “very little coverage which is really amazing because basically it says her temperament is a disaster, which I know. And you know.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump has also promoted Crisis of Character on Twitter, writing, “A former Secret Service Agent for President Clinton excoriates Crooked Hillary describing her as ERRATIC & VIOLENT” and “Secret Service Agent Gary Byrne doesn't believe that Crooked Hillary has the temperament or integrity to be the president!”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is part of a pattern for Trump. He has previously cited anti-Clinton conspiracy books from authors Ed Klein and Roger Stone and Robert Morrow, promoting their work in interviews, campaign rallies, and on his Twitter account.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But in reality, Crisis of Character appears to be more about score-settling by Byrne and a vehicle to insert himself into the ongoing conservative media narrative about Clinton. The book is filled with the sort of vitrolic attacks on the Clintons and other progressives and fulsome praise for conservatives that fill so many other anti-Clinton tomes. The original information that his publisher claims he can provide based on his service in the Clinton White House cannot be trusted, as it clashes with his own words given in testimony to Ken Starr.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne holds himself up as a truth-telling whistleblower, forced to reveal what he learned out of a sense of duty to the country (he compares Clinton being elected president to the 9/11 attacks), but in reality the book re-heats stale conservative attacks that have already gone through the conservative media pipeline repeatedly for over twenty years (including the conspiracy theory that the Clintons may have had former aide Vince Foster murdered).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne Hates The Clintons, Loves “Papa Bush”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After a laundry list of complaints about the Clintons and specifically Hillary Clinton, Byrne writes in the introduction that he has “not written a word of this book with a political agenda.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He complains that she engaged in “obscenity-laced tirades” that were “like watching Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny obsessing about a quart of missing strawberries.” Byrne’s purple prose continues as he gripes about Clinton’s “leadership style – volcanic, impulsive, enabled by sycophants, and disdainful of the rules set for everyone else.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That disdain for Clinton echoes throughout the entire book, and is a theme he returns to again and again. He describes Hillary Clinton as “spoiled,” accuses her of throwing “massive tantrums,”calls her a “joke” who was “all bark, no bite, but in a very real power position,”describes her as “the world’s biggest Bridezilla” and calls her “high-strung” and “a cheerless grifter always on her scheming way to someone or something else more important than the person directly in front of her.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He blames Clinton for the fact that “some agents literally went mad,” and accuses her of fostering “a ‘f--- it’ mentality” that “trickled down,” leading to Secret Service agents turning to alcohol, drugs, performance enhancers and “even prostitutes.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an early sign that the book is warmed-over conservative agitprop, Byrne recaps stories about Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, and Whitewater as examples of the “scandals” that “tarnished the Clinton brand and presidency.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By comparison, Byrne is effusive in his praise for former President George H.W. Bush, whom he worked for at the White House. He repeatedly refers to the Republican as “Papa Bush.” He describes him and first lady Barbara Bush as “100 percent class.” In Byrne’s eyes, “Papa Bush” “understood what it meant to be presidential.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cementing his admiration for Bush, Byrne notes that during the 1992 presidential campaign, “seeing how candidates and pundits critiqued the president wounded me.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Foreshadowing the invective to come, Byrne admits that he felt “sentimental regarding Papa Bush” during the transition to President Clinton.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne Vs. The Left</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne wears his conservative politics on his sleeve throughout the book. Early on he complains that a female partner was “obviously hired to fill a quota,” describes her as “clueless,” and notes that “diversity encroached on merit.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He invokes the phrase “What difference did it make (to borrow a phrase from Mrs. Clinton” while attacking the Assault Weapons Ban, which he complains “accomplished nothing beyond humoring gun control advocates.” (For years, conservatives have misrepresented Clinton saying “what difference, at this point, does it make” about talking points used after the Benghazi attacks to suggest she was dismissing the deaths of Americans.) Byrne also accuses President Clinton of having an “anti-Second Amendment sentiment.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The author blames a “creeping liberal mindset” for recent problems with security at the White House, arguing that “we need to empower the warrior mindset, not the liberal one.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With disdain he criticizes the “grossly immature” Clinton administration staff who “wore jeans and T-shirts” as they engaged in “grand ideological bull sessions.” He writes that this approach led to “the incident at Mogadishu,” and invokes their “constant insistence” that law enforcement officials like the Uniformed Division “had to look like their perception of good guys.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne complains that a 1995 incident in which Secret Service agents used gloves when an HIV-positive delegation visited the White House resulted in “the charge of the Politically Correct Brigade.” At the time, White House press secretary Michael McCurry said, “It's safe to say that the chief of staff and others were distressed by that and believe it to be an error of judgment.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne’s Vince Foster Conspiracy Theory</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most gratuitous swipe at Hillary Clinton’s purported attitude is Byrne’s version of White House aide Vince Foster’s suicide. (Foster’s suicide has been the focus of conspiracy theories by conservatives for years, including most recently by Trump.) He notes that “word circulated that she berated him mercilessly.” Byrne claims that “the first time I saw Foster I figured he wouldn’t last a year,” and that he “looked uncomfortable and unhappy in the White House.” He compares Clinton’s staffers like Foster to “battered wives: too loyal, too unwilling to acknowledge they’d never assuage her. They had no one to blame but themselves, but they could never admit it.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne then regurgitates one of the long-since debunked conspiracy theories surrounding Foster’s death, writing about “a rumor” among law enforcement that Foster’s suicide weapon “had to be repaired in order for the forensics team to fire it.” Byrne claims that this and other stories made the death “spooky” and cites Foster’s suicide note in which he says “I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne doesn't only question whether the Clintons murdered Foster, he also suggests he was worried that they might have wanted to kill him as well.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne writes that on a couple of occasions while he was being interviewed by lawyers as part of Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation, he “placed myself on the couch facing the door with my sidearm loaded… ready at the slightest sound to draw and fight.” He added that he felt he has “put a target on his family.” Byrne goes on to detail in the following pages how he feared that the Clintons might try to kill him. He writes that he came to question whether the Clintons might have been “behind so many of the suspicious -- or merely coincidental -- deaths surrounding their activities,” including Foster’s death. He adds, “It was my word, and my word only, against the most powerful people in the world. I’d seen them lie and intimidate. It wasn’t a stretch to think that things might escalate."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">White House Testimony Embellishment</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne was sometimes on duty when Monica Lewinsky went to the Oval Office to see Bill Clinton. He goes on at length about how he curtailed Monica Lewinsky’s attempts to get access to the Oval Office.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the midst of that narrative, Byrne writes about a time he “shooed her like a stray cat” to which she “hissed another lame excuse” for why she was around.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eventually Byrne was required to testify about Lewinsky for Ken Starr’s investigation (to his credit, Byrne concedes that by this point the investigation had nothing to do with Whitewater, the real estate deal that initiated it in the first place).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne claimed that he saw “lipstick” on a towel from someone “entertaining the president late at night,” and writes that he made the allegation that it came from the West Wing receptionist when he later testified.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this story was less definitive when Byrne testified. In 1998, Byrne said he had “no idea” who the lipstick belonged to and speculated that it “could have been the First Lady’s, I have no idea,” then later said he had "connected it" with a receptionist. Was it even lipstick? He told Starr he didn’t know “if there was actually lipstick” on the towels but “got the impression” that lipstick was present.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Starr Report also noted in reference to Byrne’s testimony that “some details of his account varied in different tellings.” Byrne also testified at the time that Secret Service agent John Muskett told him that he found Clinton and Lewinsky in a compromising moment, but Muskett denied it. Byrne even testified that his account of Muskett’s story may have incorporated some gossip, and that he was relying on memories of events that occurred “two and a half, almost three years” before the testimony. It has now been 21 years since the events allegedly occurred.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An Associated Press report from the time noted that Byrne “felt compelled to remind the prosecutors that he was merely relaying gossip he had heard. ‘It was based on other, other innuendoes and accusations, little tidbit rumors, that kind of stuff.’”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why Did Gary Byrne Write This Book?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the afterword, Byrne does his best impression of a Fox News host and re-tells the conservative version of numerous anti-Clinton stories. He discusses her private email server, the Clinton Foundation -- citing Peter Schweizer’s error-riddled book Clinton Cash as evidence -- and unsurprisingly lays the blame for the Benghazi incident at Hillary Clinton’s feet: “Hillary Clinton lied about the reason for the Benghazi attack.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne warns that the prospect of Clinton running for president makes it feel “as if America were trapped in some great, cruel time machine hurtling us back to the land of Monica and Mogadishu and a thousand other Clinton-era nightmares.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He explains, “my obligation today is to raise my voice, to help safeguard the presidency from Bill and Hillary Clinton.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Byrne concludes, “On 9/11 we vowed ‘Never forget.’ But we always somehow do,” adding, “I realize better than most Americans that we have pretty much forgotten what an amateur-night, three–ring circus the Clinton White House was. But I haven’t forgotten.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">matthew</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://thinkprogress.org/right-wing-media-claims-hurricane-matthew-is-a-government-conspiracy-putting-lives-in-jeopardy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Update</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Later Thursday night, Drudge’s site changed its banner headline from denying the intensity of Hurricane Matthew to denying the reality of climate change. The headline says “Hillary blames hurricanes on ‘climate change’” and links to a month-old post on a climate denier blog, written by Marc Morano?—?himselfknown as “the Matt Drudge of climate denial.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new NASA study found that there has been a net increase in land ice in Antarctica in recent years, despite a decline in some parts of the continent. The study's lead author astutely predicted that climate science deniers would distort the study, even though it does nothing to contradict the scientific consensus on climate change or the fact that sea levels will continue to rise.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Other Measurements Show Net Loss Of Antarctic Ice In Recent Years</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NASA's Gavin Schmidt: "I Would Pin More Weight" To Recent Data From NASA GRACE Satellite "Than To This Latest Paper." VICE News reported:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gavin Schmidt, who directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and was not affiliated with the study, said that data from a pair of satellites called GRACE, which measure gravity, actually points towards a net loss of ice on the Antarctic continent in more recent years.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schmidt said that there are two methods for measuring the mass of an ice sheet. The first measures gravity, and the second measures the elevation of the top of the ice sheet. Both methods need to take different variables into account to be accurate. The method used in this most recent study measured the ice sheet's elevation, and the most recent time period it considered ended in 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I would pin more weight to the GRACE data than to this latest paper," Schmidt told VICE News. [VICE News, 11/2/15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Slate's Phil Plait: Since End Of Study Dataset In 2008, Antarctic Ice Loss Has Greatly Accelerated. Slate science writer Phil Plait wrote:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new study just published in the Journal of Glaciology is causing some buzz in climate circles, because it appears to claim that Antarctica -- long thought to be losing ice at extremely alarming rates -- is actually gaining ice. However, note the word "appear". The reality is more complicated, and in the end the important aspect of this is that the study only talks about part of Antarctica, and only used data up to 2008. Both of these points are critical.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[...]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They looked at data going from 1992 - 2008. Starting right around that time, mass loss due to melting ice in Antarctica (mostly in the west) has accelerated. It's actually been speeding up for some time, but in recent years it's really kicked in. Every year, about six billion more tons of ice are lost than the year before. In the past two decades, the loss rate has doubled.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is enough to easily outpace the mass gained by snowfall over East Antarctica. Using data taken by the Grace satellites (which measure how mass underneath them changes over time), we know that overall, Antarctica is currently losing more than 130 billion tons of ice per year, and again, that number is increasing every year. Since 2002 it's lost about two trillion tons of ice. [Slate, 11/3/15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Study Author Was Right: Conservative Media Used Study To Deny Climate Science Consensus</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox's Varney: Study Provides "Doubt" That "Global Warming Theories Are Going The Right Way." On the November 2 edition of Fox Business' Varney & Co., host Stuart Varney teased a segment on the NASA study by claiming it is "putting some doubt that some global warming theories are going the right way. That's NASA saying that." Varney later brought on Fox News contributor Stephen Moore, who complained that the media touts every "story that seems to validate global warming," while ignoring studies like the NASA study, which are an "indication that it's actually not happening." At the end of the segment, Moore joked that "this might be the start of another Ice Age." [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 11/2/15; 11/2/15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Report Hyped NASA Study Underneath Headline About Putin Calling Global Warming "A Fraud." The Drudge Report, a highly trafficked conservative news aggregator, linked to the Christian Science Monitor's article on the NASA study with the headline "Antarctica gaining ice ..." The headline was placed beneath another headline that stated: "PUTIN: Global Warming 'A Fraud'..." (as well as a headline touting the baseless claim that the United Nations is planning to create a "climate justice" court):</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">drudge</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Drudge Report Archives, 11/2/15; Media Matters, 11/3/15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Limbaugh Criticized Media Outlet For Reporting That Study Does Not Disprove Global Warming. On the November 2 edition of his show, Rush Limbaugh criticized the Christian Science Monitor for reporting that the NASA study is not evidence that "global warming is over":</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LIMBAUGH: Is global warming over? No, no, of course not. We're not supposed to assume that! We only assume when the ice is melting that there is global warming. But when the ice is expanding? No, no, no, no, no. That does not mean that there isn't any global warming! See how this works? [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/2/15;Christian Science Monitor, 11/1/15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Thinker: "The Fraud Is Falling Apart." Conservative blog American Thinker published a blog post headlined: "Oh-oh! NASA study finds Antarctic ice cap growing." In it, American Thinker asserted that the global warming "fraud" is "falling apart." [American Thinker, 11/2/15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Telegraph: Antarctic Ice Growing "Despite Fears Over Global Warming." The Telegraph reported: "Antarctica's ice floes have been found to be growing faster than they are shrinking despite fears over global warming." [The Telegraph, 11/2/15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Daily Express: "What Global Warming?" The Daily Express published an article headlined, "What global warming? Antarctic ice is INCREASING by 135 billion tonnes a year, says NASA." The article asserted: "Global warming theories have been thrown into doubt after Nasa also claimed current horror predictions into future sea-level rises may not be as severe." [The Daily Express, 11/2/15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Newsmax: "NASA Debunks Global Warming." Right-wing website Newsmax published an article headlined: "NASA Debunks Global Warming: Ice Sheets Growing." [Newsmax, 11/1/15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative Media Have History Of Distorting Scientific Research To Fit Deniers' Agenda. Over the past several years, scientists have frequently had to call out right-wing media for distorting their studies to promote climate science denial. [Media Ma</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/11/04/nasa-scientist-warned-deniers-would-distort-his/206612</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hmmn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One media maven who can actually make that claim with a straight face is Matt Drudge.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On paper, the Drudge Report has no business being as popular and lucrative as it is. The website is as ugly today as it was when it launched in 1997. Sometimes it posts insider tips, such as the Monica Lewinsky story that made the site a household name. Mostly though, Matt Drudge and two staffers simply scan wire services and “real” newspapers, cook up irresistible headlines, then post links back to those same articles.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In other words, he intentionally sends his readers to other news websites in droves. Drudge has been called a parasite, except parasites tend to drain their hosts, not help keep them alive.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Getting your story linked at The Drudge Report,” one journalist noted, “is more important to a reporter’s reputation nowadays than getting a Pulitzer Prize.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One estimate places the Drudge Report’s value at between $150 million and $375 million. That’s while traditional newspapers report ad-revenue losses for the past 25 quarters.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Drudge has been called a parasite, except parasites tend to drain their hosts, not help keep them alive.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other ironies abound. Anecdotal received wisdom has it that most North American reporters use the Drudge Report as their default browser home page and check it multiple times a day, even if many deny it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki's Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don't get paid for their work. Email editors@takimag.com to buy additional rights. http://takimag.com/article/the_drudge_paradox_kathy_shaidle/print#ixzz3COMipGFX...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/drudge-report-looks-old-school-but-its-ad-targeting-is-state-of-the-art/253902/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Every major website tracks its users as they make their way through the site, but in an analysis completed by the privacy company Abine, one major website stands out for the number and variety of tracking methods used on its site: The Drudge Report.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That's a surprising finding given that the site's appearance hasn't changed in a decade. In a recent salutary profile, The New York Times' David Carr noted the site had "no video, no search optimization, no slide shows, and a design that is right out of a mid-'90s manual on HTML." But don't be fooled by Drudge's surface simplicity: When you the visit, up to 27 different tracking technologies from 18 separate companies are deployed. Drudge is like a 1995 Ford Escort with a 500-horsepower advertising engine under the hood.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge uses twice the number of advertising tools as the average site, according to Abine. And Drudge stands out even among news sites, which Abine CTO Andrew Sudbury said deploy "a high number of tracking technologies."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Abine created the browser add-on, Do Not Track Plus, which allows users to see the hidden communications between their browsers and data-tracking servers across the web. It provides you with X-ray vision into the advertising ecosystem that's monetizing your visit to a website.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While I'm illustrating the problems of ad tracking with the Drudge Report here, let me be clear that what they are doing is only different in degree, not in kind, from what nearly all the national news sites you visit are doing. I &nbsp;tested other prominent websites using the same methodology we used to look at Drudge. I found The New York Times deployed 10 tracking tools from 7 different companies and The Huffington Post used 19 trackers from 10 companies. The lesson from Drudge is that you can't judge a site's business-side sophistication by the way that it looks on the web.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Report did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Drudge Report's ads are sold by a long-time Internet advertising company called Intermarkets, which was founded in 1997. The site also sells advertising for MichelleMalkin.com, AnnCoulter.com, and the Media Research Center. Even among these sites, there was wide variation in their use of data tracking tools. MichelleMalkin.com only used 17 and AnnCoulter.com just 10</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Update: Intermarkets' hefty response letter, sent this morning, was caught in my spam filter. It's presented here in full. Writing for the company, Michael Loy, chief managing officer, contended that Drudge's data policy "is not materially different from any other websites." Loy also contended -- rightly, I think -- that because DrudgeReport.com does not have social media widgets that track users, it protects its users privacy in a significant way that sites like The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and others do not.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is a substantive dispute over the nature of the data that passes between your browser and the companies that Drudge works with. There are a number of data exchanges related to ad *bidding and placement but not behavioral tracking that occur through Drudge's relationship with the Rubicon Project. This data, Intermarkets' Loy says, does not meet the definition that the industry itself has given ad tracking: "the collection of data online... for the purpose of using such data to deliver advertising to that computer or device based on the preferences or interests inferred from such Web viewing behaviors." Note the second clause: the industry does not want to count all data collection in the same way. If it's not explicitly going to be used for behavioral targeting, then they do not consider it ad tracking.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lastly, as Intermarkets rightly points out: our own media company uses many similar tools, so it is difficult to state definitely who is spreading what data farther or wider. The reality is that we all do this and navigating this terrain is very complicated.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tracking tools fall into several categories, as discussed in my article last week on the 105 companies tracking me on the web. In some cases, the tracking code is used to serve an ad. In others, it verifies the ad was sold. Still others measure the audience and provide data for ad targeting. And then there are scores of middlemen that gather data and sell ads all over the web, knitting together the various other players.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reverse engineering exactly what's happening with even a single website's advertising machinery is harder than it sounds. There are an order of magnitude more characters of code on Drudge dedicated to advertising and tracking than there are words for humans on the page, Sudbury told me.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When you go to Drudge Report, you load a whole bunch of their code. It's 160,000 characters of Javascript that you're loading," Sudbury told me. "It reads and sets all kinds of cookies based on what you know and they already know about you."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why are so many tracking tools deployed on the site? It's actually a kind of emergent effect. Basically, Drudge can sell an advertising space to some advertising company, who can, in turn, resell that space to someone else, who again, can resell that space. At each step, the data about who you are has to be passed on down the line, so that prospective advertisers can decide how much they'd like to pay to show you an ad. Before you know it, 18 companies have been daisychained in. And all this can happen between when you hit enter on Drudge and when the ads show up.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/09/06/drudges-race-baiting-is-only-getting-worse/195762</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new study from The New Republic determined that the Drudge Report's use of race-baiting headlines has soared in the last five years, a fact that lends context to the recent flood of conservative media amplifying random, interracial crimes and baselessly assigning them a racial motive.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Matt Drudge's conservative website Drudge Report is infamous for its obsessive coverage of alleged black-on-white crime and race-baiting headlines. But it's only getting worse, according to a new analysis by The New Republic. The magazine analyzed Drudge's use of race-related terms in headlines after 2008 -- the year President Obama established himself as a national figure with his first presidential campaign -- with Drudge headlines before 2008, and the results are striking. According to the analysis, since 2008, Drudge headlines:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Referencing "racism" have more than tripled</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the term "racist" have nearly doubled</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Containing "black" and "crime" have quadrupled, and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Have included the n-word eight times, a slur not found in Drudge headlines before 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notably, the analysis highlighted that Drudge often altered headlines to inject a racial component when the original source contained none....</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/drudge-and-tucker-carlson-arent-only-clowns-circus-8-ridiculous-right-wing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">breitbart carlson</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">edited BO: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/09/20/extended-1998-video-discredits-right-wing-media/190021</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NBC News has obtained an extended version of a 1998 video in which President Obama discusses government's role in creating a society where everyone has a fair chance at success. In the longer version, Obama speaks positively about competition and the marketplace -- which further dismantles the right-wing media's suggestion that the video is evidence that Obama is a socialist.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On September 18, the Drudge Report linked to a YouTube video of Obama speaking at an October 1998 conference at Loyola University in Chicago. Drudge used the headline "I actually believe in redistribution" under a picture of Obama, which right-wing bloggers seized on to label Obama "America's Socialist in Chief."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even that is a cropped version of what Obama said. The end of his sentence was, "at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody's got a shot."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the extended video obtained by NBC News completely debunks the idea that Obama was in any way expressing opposition to capitalism. His next sentence is, "How do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at the local level and can be tailored to particular communities."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see HORNER</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">eg bs on cap and trade, picked up by drudge and cbs/cnet: &nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The memo never mentions the amount of $1,761. Wherever that number came from, it isn't in the document that is supposedly behind this story.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In any case, this memo from 9 months ago about a hypothetical bill has been superseded by three independent studies of the bill that actually passed the House. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the independent Energy Information Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency all conclude that climate legislation will cost American households less than a postage stamp per day. &nbsp;September &nbsp;2009</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/09/16/174427/mccullagh-cei-attack/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">toobin p 230</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">slanders iraq war reporter http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2007/04/02/11553/ware-drudge/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://66.39.128.35/index.php?title=Michael_Ware</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">coordinated attack?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;http://twitter.com/#!/Drudge_Report/status/81975087556866048</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">retweets fox story</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/research-center-under-fire-for-adjusted-sea-level-data/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">heartland</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steve Nerem, the director</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://cires.colorado.edu/people/nerem/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just to comment on the one article, in regards to Greenlands ice sheet, the method used and the one you use to show growth of greenlands icesheet was with radar. However, newer more accurate technology in the form of the NASA GRACE program shows a decrease in total ice mass from the greenland ice cap.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recent Greenland Ice Mass Loss by Drainage System from Satellite Gravity Observations</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">S. B. Luthcke,1* H. J. Zwally,2 W. Abdalati,2 D. D. Rowlands,1 R. D. Ray,1 R. S. Nerem,3 F. G. Lemoine,1 J. J. McCarthy,4 D. S. Chinn4</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hunting Consan Drudge, Conway, Ingraham, Coulter, Brock p 330</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SW</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Drudge Report is a website hosted by Matt Drudge, which features occasional salacious rumors about politicians and celebrities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;--</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">often joined at hip with breitbart; abortive scandal tries ~ 47%</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/drudge-and-tucker-carlson-arent-only-clowns-circus-8-ridiculous-right-wing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His website was also one of the first to publish reports of Monica Lewinsky's affair with President Bill Clinton. However, Drudge had nothing to do with the footwork associated with this scoop. He obtained it from Newsweek magazine, which had decided at the last minute to can the story written by Michael Isikoff. (Source needed)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the 1990s, Matt Drudge had a short-lived cable television show.[1] He filled in for right-wing talker Rush Limbaugh during Limbaugh's 2003 stint in a drug rehabilitation clinic. [2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contents</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1 Contact details</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 Articles and Resources</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2.1 Related SourceWatch Articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2.2 References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2.3 External resources</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2.4 External articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contact details</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Web: http://www.drudgereport.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Articles and Resources</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related SourceWatch Articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bush administration smear campaigns: John Forbes Kerry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Forbes Kerry's military service</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WatchingAmerica.com – similar project</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? (Compiled From Staff And Wire Reports) (1998-03-05). Drudge Brings Unique Reporting To Fox. Orlando Sentinel - Orlando, Fla.. Retrieved on 2010-02-15. “Online gossip monger Matt Drudge is going on television - the Fox News Channel has signed him to do a weekly show. ... he goes on television in late May...”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Jill Barton, Associated Press (2003-11-13). Limbaugh to resume hosting radio show. Boston Globe. Retrieved on 2010-02-15. “Rush Limbaugh will return to his radio talk show Monday after completing a five-week treatment program for his addiction to painkillers, his brother said yesterday....to Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge, who was sitting in yesterday for the conservative commentator.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">External resources</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">External articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Matt Drudge", Media Matters for America.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Brock: Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-conservative (New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 2002), ISBN 1400047285, pages 307-309.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sidney Blumenthal, "Why Kerry Should Sue the Sun," Guardian (UK), February 19, 2004, discusses Drudge's false claims that Blumenthal was a wife-beater and that John Kerry had an affair with Alexandra Polier.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Andrew Hearst, "Is AOL Responsible for Its Hip Shooter's Bullets?", Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 1997.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Denise Caruso, "The Law and the Internet: Beware", Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 1998.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thomas Lang, "Drudge: The Ellipse as a Tool of Deception", Campaign Desk, Columbia Journalism Review, January 15, 2004.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brian Montopoli, "The Drudge Report: The Gift That Keeps on Giving", Campaign Desk, Columbia Journalism Review, May 18, 2004.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Pachter: "Linking News Sites, Matt Drudge Creates an Internet Success", Miami Herald, September 1, 2003</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Report The Official Drudge Report Website</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Report Toolbar - Drudge Report Headlines and Tools in your browser</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Report Archives (since Nov. 2001)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Tracker - The top Drudge Report headlines of the past 2 weeks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wikipedia also has an article on Drudge Report. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Drudge_Report"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Categories: Media | United States | Journalists</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">eg drudge on gw http://mediamatters.org/blog/201008310030</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Drudge Report is a news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Andrew Breitbart, the site consists mainly of links to stories from the United States and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many columnists. The Drudge Report is often considered conservative in tone, though the sources cited and linked to run the gamut of political leanings.[2][3][4][5][6]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Occasionally, Drudge authors news stories himself based on tips. The Report originated in 1996 as a weekly subscriber-based email dispatch.[1] It was most famous for being the first news source to break the Monica Lewinsky scandal to the public after Newsweek decided not to publish the story.[7]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contents</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[hide]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1 Origins</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 Content</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 Design</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 Political leanings</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 Influence</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6 Archives</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7 Notable stories</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7.1 Monica Lewinsky scandal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7.2 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7.3 Obama photo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7.4 Prince Harry in Afghanistan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7.5 U.S. Senate Problems</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8 Controversial stories, errors and questions about sourcing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8.1 Exclusives</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8.2 Sidney Blumenthal lawsuit</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8.3 Alleged John Kerry intern scandal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8.4 Alleged Bill Clinton illegitimate child</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8.5 Alleged CNN reporter heckling of GOP Senators</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8.6 Oprah and Sarah Palin</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8.7 Ashley Todd attack hoax</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9 References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10 External links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Origins</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Selected Stand-Alone Political Blogs & News Sites</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Site<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Unique Audience Sept. 2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">huffingtonpost.com<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>4,545,000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">politico.com<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>2,362,000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">drudgereport.com<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>2,059,000</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source: comScore Media Metrix[8]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Drudge Report started as a gossip column focusing on Hollywood and Washington, D.C.[9] Matt Drudge began the email-based newsletter called Report from an apartment in Hollywood, California, using his connections with industry and media insiders to break stories, sometimes before they hit the mainstream media. Drudge maintains the website from his home in Miami Beach, Florida, with help from Andrew Breitbart, who assists in story selection and headline writing.[10] Breitbart, who describes himself as "Matt Drudge’s bitch",[11] works the afternoon shift at the Drudge Report,[12] as well as running his own website (breitbart.com), and another website (BigHollywood.com) providing a conservative perspective for people in the Los Angeles entertainment industry.[13]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge, who began his website in 1997 as a supplement to his $10/year email newsletter,[14] received national attention in 1996 when he broke the news that Jack Kemp would be Republican Bob Dole's running mate in the 1996 presidential election. In 1998, Drudge made national waves when he broke the news that Newsweek magazine had information on an inappropriate relationship between "a White House intern" and President Bill Clinton (the Monica Lewinsky scandal), but was withholding publication.[15][16][17] After Drudge's report, Newsweek published the story.[18]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Content</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Drudge Report site consists mainly of selected[19] hyperlinks to news websites all over the world, each link carrying a headline written by Drudge or his editors. The linked stories are generally hosted on the external websites of mainstream media outlets. It occasionally includes stories written by Drudge — usually two or three paragraphs in length. They generally concern a story about to be published in a major magazine or newspaper. Drudge occasionally publishes Nielsen, Arbitron, or BookScan ratings, or early election exit polls that are otherwise not made available to the public.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The site carries advertisements that generate the site's revenue. The Drudge Report's advertising is sold by Vienna, Virginia-based ad firm Intermarkets.[20]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In April, 2009, Associated Press announced that it would be examining the fair use doctrine used by sites like Google and Drudge Report to justify the use of AP content without payment.[21][22]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On May 4, 2009, the US Attorney General's office issued a warning to employees in Massachusetts not to visit the Drudge Report and other sites because of malicious code contained in some of the advertising on the website.[23] In March, 2010, antivirus company Avast! warned that advertising at the Drudge Report, New York Times, Yahoo, Google, MySpace and other sites carried malware that could infect computers. "The most compromised ad delivery platforms were Yield Manager and Fimserve, but a number of smaller ad systems, including Myspace, were also found to be delivering malware on a lesser scale, Avast Virus Labs said."[24]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Design</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Example screenshot of the Drudge Report front page, November 1, 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The site's design has seen few changes since its 1997 debut, and remains entirely written in unscripted HTML with a mostly monochromatic color scheme of black boldface Courier New text on a plain white background. The Drudge Report was described by Cheryl Woodard, co-founder of PC, Macworld, PC World and Publish magazines, as "a big, haphazard mishmash of links and photos"[25] and by Dan Rahmel as "popular despite a plain appearance".[26] The Report website is simple and, according to Paul Armstrong of webwithoutwords.com, retro in feel.[27] Jason Fried of 37signals.com calls it "one of the best designed sites on the web."[28] It consists of a banner headline and a number of other selected headlines in three columns in monospaced font. Most link to an outside source, usually the online edition of a newspaper, which hosts the story. When no such source is available, either because the story is 'developing'[29] with little known details at the moment or is an exclusive scoop, a special page is created on the Drudge Report servers which contain text and possibly images.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are different importance levels a story could appear as on the site, the rating of which relies on Matt Drudge's editorial discretion. The Report almost always holds one major story above the logo, usually just one sentence hyperlinked to the most important story of the day. Other stories surrounding the main headline can be found in the upper left hand side of the page and link to more specific articles dealing with aspects of the headline story. The standard story, either the headline or links below the logo, are written in black. The stories Drudge considers most important are in red, all under a single major headline in large, bold type. For especially important breaking stories, especially if still emerging, Drudge places art of a flashing red light on the screen.[30]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although the site initially featured very few images, it is now usually illustrated with five or six photographs. Generally the images, like the linked headlines, are hotlinked from other news agencies' servers.[31]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Political leanings</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Matt Drudge has said that he is a conservative, but "more of a populist".[32] The Drudge Report website is generally regarded as conservative in tone,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39] and has been referred to in the media as "a conservative news aggregator". More recently Richard Siklos, an editor of Fortune magazine, called the Drudge Report a "conservative bullhorn",[40] the Los Angeles Times labelled Drudge a "well-known conservative warrior",[41] the New York Times referred to him as a "conservative muckraker",[42] and&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">G</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">lenn Greenwald called him a "right-wing hack".[43] Greenwald also wrote that the Drudge Report (inter alia) is part of the "Bush/Cheney right-wing noise machine",[44] adding: "Allowing [websites like Drudge Report, inter alia] to dominate our political debates and drive media coverage guarantees a decrepit, rotted, and deeply corrupt country. ... Their endless lynch mob crusades supplant rational and substantive political debates."[45]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ben Shapiro of townhall.com wrote "The American left can't restrict Internet usage or ban talk radio, so it de-legitimizes these news sources. Ripping alternative news sources as illegitimate is the left's only remaining option -- it cannot compete with the right wing in the new media....They call Matt Drudge a muckraker and a yellow journalist."[46]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 2005 study (see details) placed the Drudge Report "left of center." "One thing people should keep in mind is that our data for the Drudge Report was based almost entirely on the articles that the Drudge Report lists on other Web sites," said Groseclose, the head of the study. "Very little was based on the stories that Matt Drudge himself wrote. The fact that the Drudge Report appears left of center is merely a reflection of the overall bias of the media."[47] The study was criticised by Mark Liberman[48][49] and liberal media watchdogs.[50][51]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Influence</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Mark Halperin, "Drudge's coverage affects the media's political coverage", effectively steering the media's political coverage towards what Halperin calls "the most salacious aspects of American politics."[52] In The Way To Win, a book written by Halperin and John Harris, Drudge is called "the Walter Cronkite of his era."[52][53] Democratic Party strategist Chris Lehane says "phones start ringing" whenever Drudge breaks a story, and Mark McKinnon, a former media advisor to George W. Bush, said that he checked the site 30–40 times per day.[52] Matt Drudge has been criticized by other media news personalities: Bill O'Reilly twice called Drudge a "threat to democracy" in response to Drudge disclosing his book sales figures,[54] and Keith Olbermann referred to Drudge as "an idiot with a modem".[55]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge (and his website) was labelled one of the "Top 10 anti-Barack Obama conservatives" by the US editor of The Daily Telegraph in February 2009.[56]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to the media influence, Drudge Report also has influenced design elements on other sites. Some with opposing view points [57] and some who use the same format of listing news.[58] A left-leaning[59] parody site called Drudge Retort was founded in 1998 as "a send-up of Mr. Drudge's breathless style".[60][61][62]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Archives</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many reports from 1995 to early 1997 are available in the Usenet archive provided by Google Groups. A more extensive archive of the website is provided by Drudge Report Archives, which has archives since mid-November 2001 and stores snapshots of the Drudge Report homepage every two minutes.[63]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Notable stories</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Monica Lewinsky scandal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Drudge Report attained prominence when it was the first to report what came to be known as the Lewinsky scandal. Drudge published the story on January 17, 1998, after Newsweek reportedly turned down the story.[64]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Swift Boat Veterans for Truth</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During 2004 U.S. presidential campaign, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group made claims about John Kerry's war record, which were mentioned by Drudge and investigated by major newspapers and TV networks.[52]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Obama photo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge [65] published a photo of Barack Obama in Somali tribal dress on February 25, 2008,[66] and reported that the photo had been sent to him by a Clinton campaign staffer.[67] The publication of the photograph resulted in a brief war of words between the Clinton and Obama campaign organizations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Prince Harry in Afghanistan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On February 28, 2008 Drudge published an article noting that Prince Harry of Wales was serving with his regiment in Afghanistan. Prince Harry was ten weeks into a front-line deployment in Afghanistan that was subject to a voluntary news blackout by the UK press.[68] The blackout was designed to protect Prince Harry and the men serving with him from being specifically targeted by the Taliban.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An Australian weekly women’s magazine New Idea broke the story in January,[69] but it was not followed up at the time. New Idea editors claimed ignorance of any news blackout.[70] Then a German newspaper, the Berliner Kurier, published a short piece on February 28, 2008, also before Drudge. [71] Drudge subsequently claimed the report as an exclusive. Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, professional head of the British Army, said: "I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us".[72] The Prince's tour of duty was prematurely ended, since his unit might be targeted by large scale suicide attacks intended to kill the Prince.[73]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] U.S. Senate Problems</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On March 9, 2010, The Senate Sergeant-at-Arms claimed the site was "responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate...Please avoid using [this] site until the Senate resolves this issue...The Senate has been swamped the last couples (sic) days with this issue." The Drudge Report countered stating "it served more than 29 million pages Monday without an e-mail complaint about 'pop ups,' or the site serving 'viruses.'"[74]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Controversial stories, errors and questions about sourcing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Exclusives</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Research by the media magazine Brill's Content in 1998 cast doubt on the accuracy of the majority of the 'exclusives' claimed by the Drudge Report. Of the 51 stories claimed as exclusives from January to September 1998, the magazine found 31 (61%) were actually exclusive stories. Of those, 32% were untrue, 36% were true and the remaining 32% were of debatable accuracy.[17]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Sidney Blumenthal lawsuit</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1997, the Drudge Report reported that incoming White House assistant Sidney Blumenthal beat his wife and was covering it up. Drudge retracted the story the next day and apologized, saying he was given bad information, but Blumenthal filed a $30 million libel lawsuit against Drudge.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;After four years, Blumenthal dropped his lawsuit. Blumenthal said the suit had cost him tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. He agreed to pay $2,500 to Drudge's Los Angeles attorney for travel costs, claiming that Drudge was "backed by unlimited funds from political supporters who use a tax-exempt foundation."[75][76][77][78] The Individual Rights Foundation, led by conservative activist David Horowitz, paid Drudge's legal fees in the Blumenthal lawsuit. A federal judge noted in the judgment that Drudge "is not a reporter, a journalist, or a newsgatherer. He is, as he admits himself, simply a purveyor of gossip."[9]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Alleged John Kerry intern scandal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the 2004 Presidential campaign, Drudge ran a story quoting General Wesley Clark, where Clark claimed that the John Kerry campaign would implode over an intern affair. Drudge reported that other news outlets were investigating the alleged affair. He removed it from the site shortly thereafter when the other news outlets dropped the investigations.[79]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Alleged Bill Clinton illegitimate child</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1999, the Drudge Report announced that it had viewed a videotape which was the basis of a Star Magazine and Hard Copy story. Under the headline, Woman Names Bill Clinton Father Of Son In Shocking Video Confession, Drudge reported a videotaped "confession" by a former prostitute who claimed that her son was fathered by Bill Clinton. The Report stated, "To accuse the most powerful man in the world of being the father of her son is either the hoax of a lifetime, or a personal turmoil that needs resolution. Only two people may know that answer tonight." The claim turned out to be a hoax.[80]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Alleged CNN reporter heckling of GOP Senators</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On April 1, 2007 Drudge cited an unnamed "official" source saying that CNN reporter Michael Ware had "heckled" Republican Senators McCain and Graham during a live press conference.[81] Drudge reported that:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>An official at the press conference called Ware's conduct "outrageous," saying, "here you have two United States Senators in Bagdad giving first-hand reports while Ware is laughing and mocking their comments. I've never witnessed such disrespect. This guy is an activist not a reporter."<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— The Drudge Report, Matthew Drudge</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ware disputed Drudge's report on CNN April 2, 2007, saying that the story was leaked "by an unnamed official of some kind to a blog", that the story was anonymous, and that no one was willing to put their name to it; he advised people to view the tape.[citation needed] Video hosted by Rawstory shows that Ware did not make a sound nor ask any question during the press conference.[82][83] The Drudge Report did not retract or apologize for the story. Drudge's report was echoed in The Washington Times, which carried opinion questioning Ware's trustworthiness, and in many conservative blogs, some of which called for Ware's resignation.[citation needed]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Oprah and Sarah Palin</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On September 5, 2008 the Drudge Report reported that Oprah staffers were "sharply divided on the merits of booking Sarah Palin." He said that he obtained the information from an anonymous source. Winfrey responded in a written statement to news outlets that: "The item in today’s Drudge Report is categorically untrue. There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show. At the beginning of this presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates." Oprah Winfrey's public statement came after she had already used her show to publicly endorse Barack Obama for president.[84] Drudge was accused of planting a false story for political ends by some commentators.[85]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] Ashley Todd attack hoax</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On October 23, 2008, Drudge published an unconfirmed exclusive story regarding Ashley Todd, the 20-year old employee[86][87] of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) and John McCain volunteer who had allegedly been attacked by a black male for having a McCain sticker on her car in Pittsburgh. Drudge reported the story without a link but as 'developing', titling the headline "SHOCK: McCAIN VOLUNTEER ATTACKED AND MUTILATED IN PITTSBURGH - "B" carved into 20 yr old Woman's Face".[88] The story set off a "storm of media attention",[86] being quickly picked up by many conservative bloggers and right-wing talk radio show hosts, all citing the Drudge Report as their source. It was also reported in newspapers and TV both in the US and around the world.[89] The story was confirmed to be a hoax perpetrated by Todd and, according to Talking Points Memo, spread to reporters by McCain's Pennsylvania Communications Director.[90][91]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge then printed a retraction of the story, including links to the news stories detailing that the attack had been a hoax and that Ashley Todd had performed a similar 'attack' on herself while volunteering in a local Ron Paul grassroots group. She was later asked to leave the group because of the hoax.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b Jason M Shepard (2008). "Drudge Report". Encyclopedia of American Journalism. pp. 146–7. ISBN 9780415969505. http://books.google.com/?id=Wo8IY5oMpX4C.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Rutenberg, Jim; Carter, Bill (2001-11-07). "A NATION CHALLENGED: THE MEDIA; Network Coverage a Target Of Fire From Conservatives - The New York Times". www.nytimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/07/us/nation-challenged-media-network-coverage-target-fire-conservatives.html. Retrieved 2009-04-21.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Minzesheimer, Bob (2003-07-23). "USATODAY.com - Reading from the right". www.usatoday.com. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2003-07-22-right_x.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-21.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "TheHill.com - Bank nationalization would test Obama". thehill.com. http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/bank-nationalization-would-pose-hurdles-for-obama-2009-02-19.html. Retrieved 2009-04-21.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Will a funny thing happen on the way to Washington?". www.ft.com. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1a46682a-9c73-11dd-a42e-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1. Retrieved 2009-04-21.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "McCain labels Obama 'the redistributor' - Washington Times". www.washingtontimes.com. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/27/mccain-labels-obama-redistributor/. Retrieved 2009-04-21.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Scandalous scoop breaks online". BBC News. 1998-01-25. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/clinton_scandal/50031.stm. Retrieved 2007-06-23.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Huffington Post and Politico Lead Wave of Explosive Growth at Independent Political Blogs and News Sites this Election Season". comScore. http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2525. Retrieved 2008-10-28.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b "BLUMENTHAL vs DRUDGE". http://epic.org/free_speech/blumenthal_v_drudge.html. Retrieved 2006-12-18.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Sappell, Joel (2007-08-04). "Hot links served up daily". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-drudge4aug04,0,4136919,full.story?coll=la-home-center. Retrieved 2007-08-04.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Lists: What's Your Source for That? Where Andrew Breitbart gets his information.". ReasonOnline.com. http://www.reason.com/news/show/122048.html. Retrieved 2008-10-01.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Andrew Breitbart: Drudge's Human Face". Gawker.com. http://gawker.com/5044885/andrew-breitbart-drudges-human-face. Retrieved 2008-09-10.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Hollywood Infidel". Observer.com. http://www.observer.com/2008/arts-culture/hollywood-infidel?page=0%2C1. Retrieved 2008-10-01.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Profile: Matt Drudge - Webmaster of pork pies - Scotland on Sunday". scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com. http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/comment/Profile-Matt-Drudge--Webmaster.3834340.jp. Retrieved 2009-03-13.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Drudge, Matt (1998-01-17). "Newsweek Kills Story On White House Intern". The Drudge Report. Archived from the original on 2006-09-01. http://web.archive.org/web/20060901114541/http://www.drudgereport.com/ml.htm. Retrieved 2006-10-05.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Johnson, Glen (1998-01-23). "Newsweek got, held scoop on Clinton story". AP/Denver Rocky Mountain News. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-5261149.html. Retrieved 2007-04-05.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b ?McClintick, David (1998-11). "Town Crier for the New Age". Brill's Content. Archived from the original on 2000-08-19. http://web.archive.org/web/20000819015036/http://www.brillscontent.com/features/cryer_1198.html. Retrieved 2010-07-23.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Fineman, Howard; Karen Breslau (1998-02-02). "Sex, Lies and the President". Newsweek. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=NWEC&p_theme=nwec&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EC05F711C09BB0F&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2007-04-05.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Carole A., Levitt; Mark E. Rosch (2006). The lawyer's guide to fact finding on the Internet. American Bar Association. pp. 198. ISBN 1590316711. http://books.google.com/?id=FOyDyI-yHm4C&pg=PA203. "Along with the links comes Drudge's own (conservative) opinions on the news stories he chooses to highlight."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Sherman, Gabriel. "Underground Man". www.tnr.com. http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=33037aaf-848f-4b79-8a75-34d6c793457e&p=2. Retrieved 2009-04-22.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Newsmax.com - AP Worried About Google, Drudge". www.newsmax.com. http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/ap_google_drudge/2009/04/07/200653.html. Retrieved 2009-04-08.[dead link]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Sarno, David (2009-04-07). "Associated Press accuses online news outlets of 'misappropriation' - Los Angeles Times". www.latimes.com. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ap7-2009apr07,0,2878784.story. Retrieved 2009-04-08.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "U.S. Attorney's office tells employees not to log on to Drudge Report - Jonathan Martin - POLITICO.com". www.politico.com. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22574.html. Retrieved 2009-05-16.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Malware delivered by Yahoo, Fox, Google ads". news.cnet.com. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20000898-245.html. Retrieved 2010-04-15.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Woodard, Cheryl; Lucia Hwang (2007). Every nonprofit's guide to publishing. Nolo. pp. 185. ISBN 1413306586. http://books.google.com/?id=npBsx7qBBr4C&pg=PA185.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Rahmel, Dan (2007). Beginning Joomla!: From Novice to Professional. Apress. pp. 217. ISBN 1590598482. http://books.google.com/?id=fLV0bCdBIVMC&pg=PA217.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "The Drudge Report » blog". webwithoutwords.com. http://webwithoutwords.com/blog/drudge_report/. Retrieved 2009-04-13. "Drudge Report succeeds in having that web "retro" feel of something stuck in the early 90s"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Why the Drudge Report is one of the best designed sites on the web - (37signals)". www.37signals.com. http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1407-why-the-drudge-report-is-one-of-the-best-designed-sites-on-the-web. Retrieved 2009-04-13.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "A Touching Moment (washingtonpost.com)". www.washingtonpost.com. 2004-07-15. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51302-2004Jul15.html. Retrieved 2009-04-13. "The next day, Matt Drudge followed suit with his own 'developing' Kerry-Edwards 'story' titled, 'Can't keep hands off each other.'"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Silicon Insider: Surfing Upstream - ABC News". abcnews.go.com. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/IndustryInfo/story?id=2915370. Retrieved 2009-04-13. "On a given day, the Drudge Report may contain thirty or forty sentence-long headlines, the most important ones in red, all under a single major headline in large, bold type. On the really big breaking stories, especially the ones still emerging, Drudge will even post a flashing siren on the screen"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Drudge done hotlinking, finally?". www.themediadrop.com. http://www.themediadrop.com/2007/10/03/drudge-done-hotlinking-finally/. Retrieved 2009-04-13.[dead link]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Sokol, Brett (2001-06-28). "The Drudge Retort". Miami New Times. http://www.miaminewtimes.com/Issues/2001-06-28/news/feature.html. Retrieved 2006-11-01. "Matt Drudge: "I am a conservative""</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Liberal media's voice grows stronger". Crainsnewyork.com. http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20081012/SUB/310129950. Retrieved 2009-03-19. "On the Web, The Huffington Post has become a leading news and opinion site just three years after launching. Modeled after conservative news aggregator The Drudge Report""</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Will a funny thing happen on the way to Washington?". Edward Luce. The Financial Times. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1a46682a-9c73-11dd-a42e-000077b07658.html. Retrieved 2008-10-29. "...the conservative Drudge Report..."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "McCain labels Obama 'the redistributor'". Stephen Dinan. The Washington Times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/27/mccain-labels-obama-redistributor/. Retrieved 2008-10-29. "..the conservative Drudge Report..."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "MoveOn.org Targets AP's Fournier for Alleged Pro-McCain Bias". Editor and Publisher (pay site, article is available elsewhere online). http://www.editorandpublisher.com. Retrieved 2008-09-10. "...the Drudge Report ....and numerous other conservative sites"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Drudge Retort Considers Lawsuit Against AP". MediaPost NY. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=84800. Retrieved 2008-12-09. "...the conservative Drudge Report"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "A weekly look at what's getting the most looks online". The Topeka Capital-Journal. http://cjonline.com/stories/111508/loc_356232379.shtml. Retrieved 2008-12-09. "...the Drudge Report, a popular conservative Web site."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Bill Clinton tells Rush Limbaugh: 'You're tan, fit, look good'". Rawstory.com. http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Bill_Clinton_tells_Rush_Limbaugh_Youre_0517.html. Retrieved 2008-12-09. "Limbaugh spoke about how the conservative Drudge Report first reported..."[dead link]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Richard Siklos (2008-06-06). "The Web 2.0-defying logic of Drudge". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/06/technology/drudge_report.fortune/index.htm?section=money_news_newsmakers. Retrieved 2008-06-28.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Wallsten, Peter (2009-01-29). "New political era? Same as the old one - Los Angeles Times". www.latimes.com. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-house-stimulus-assess29-2009jan29,0,5515444.story. Retrieved 2009-02-07. "...well-known conservative warriors such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge..."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Hansell, Saul (2008-06-16). "The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs - NYTimes.com". www.nytimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/business/media/16ap.html?ref=technology. Retrieved 2009-02-21. "Drudge Report, run by the conservative muckraker Matt Drudge"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Philip Weiss (2007). "Watching Matt Drudge". New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/news/media/36617/. Retrieved 2007-08-31.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Salon.com". www.salon.com. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/25/military/print.html. Retrieved 2009-04-14.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Salon.com". www.salon.com. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/02/09/edwards_conclusions/print.html. Retrieved 2009-04-14.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Ben Shapiro : Left behind: the democratization of the media - Townhall.com". townhall.com. http://townhall.com/columnists/BenShapiro/2002/10/16/left_behind_the_democratization_of_the_media. Retrieved 2009-04-14.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist - UCLA Newsroom". newsroom.ucla.edu. http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx. Retrieved 2010-02-28.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Liberman, Mark (2005-12-23). "Multiplying ideologies considered harmful". Language Log. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/_{myl/languagelog/archives/002724.html}. Retrieved 2006-11-06.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Liberman, Mark (2005-12-22). "Linguistics, politics, mathematics". Language Log. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/_{myl/languagelog/archives/002723.html}. Retrieved 2006-11-06.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Flawed UCLA-led study on medias liberal bias". www.spinwatch.org.uk. http://www.spinwatch.org.uk/latest-news-mainmenu-10/157-us-politics/2468-flawed-ucla-led-study-on-medias-liberal-bias. Retrieved 2009-03-07.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "All Major U.S. Media Lean Left Except Fox News and Washington Times, UCLA Study Finds". www.lifesitenews.com. http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/dec/05121903.html. Retrieved 2009-03-07. "...Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and the Drudge Report - were in a statistical dead heat in the race for the most centrist news outlet..."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b c d "Drudge Report Sets Tone for National Political Coverage". ABC News. 2006-10-01. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2514276&page=1. Retrieved 2006-10-01.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Halpernin, Mark; John F. Harris (October 2006). The Way To Win. Random House. ISBN 1-4000-6447-3.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Drudge, Matt (2003-12-18). "Host Unhinged After Sales Figures Revealed; Calls DRUDGE 'Threat To Democracy'". Drudge Report. http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2003/12/18/20031218_150408_mattbc1.htm. Retrieved 2007-03-26.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Kurtz, Howard (1998-09-15). "MSNBC Pundit Rises With Clinton Crises". Washington Post. pp. E1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/olbermann091598.htm. Retrieved 2006-10-01.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Top 10 anti-Barack Obama conservatives :: Toby Harnden". London: blogs.telegraph.co.uk. 2009-02-27. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/02/27/top_10_antibarack_obama_conservatives. Retrieved 2009-03-03. "Drudge's deft selection of links helps build a conservative case against Obama every day."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Drudge Retort". 2009. http://www.drudge.com/. Retrieved 2009-01-24.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Jrudge Report". 2009. http://www.jrudgereport.com/. Retrieved 2009-01-24.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Hansell, Saul (2008-06-16). "The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs - NYTimes.com". www.nytimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/business/media/16ap.html?ref=technology. Retrieved 2009-03-21. "The Drudge Retort was initially started as a left-leaning parody of the much larger Drudge Report, run by the conservative muckraker Matt Drudge."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Barron, James (1999-01-08). "Pen With Meaning". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05E3DE113EF93BA35752C0A96F958260. Retrieved 2008-10-01.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Kramer, Staci D.. "Drudge Retort's Retort To AP: Personal Issue Resolved But 'Larger Conflict' Remains". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002567_pf.html. Retrieved 2008-10-01.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Richtel, Matt (1998-08-27). "NEWS WATCH; From the Drudge Report To the Drudge Retort". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E6DA133CF934A1575BC0A96E958260&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. Retrieved 2008-10-01.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Drudge Report Archives". Drudgereportarchives.com. http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/. Retrieved 2006-10-05.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Newsweek Kills Story on White House Intern", Drudge Report, January 17, 1998</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Al Jazeera English - Americas - Obama plays down photo row". english.aljazeera.net. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/02/200852514445714214.html. Retrieved 2009-03-03.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Clinton Staffers Circulate 'Dressed' Obama", Drudge Report, February 27, 2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Barack Obama tribal photo 'sent to Drudge Report by Hillary Clinton staff'", Telegraph, February 27, 2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "News black-out". BBC News. 2008-02-29. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/02/news_blackout.html. Retrieved 2008-03-02.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "New Idea defends claims it endangered Prince Harry". Daily telegraph (Australia). 2008-02-29. http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23296278-5016558,00.html. Retrieved 2008-02-29.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "New Idea pleads ignorance on Harry embargo". ABC Australia News. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/29/2176274.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-01.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Frontline Harry a well-kept secret". The West Australian. http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=29&ContentID=60689. Retrieved 2008-02-29.[dead link]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Harry leak disappoints army chief". BBC News. 2008-02-28. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7269787.stm. Retrieved 2008-02-29.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Army prepares to evacuate Harry after news blackout fails", The Guardian, February 29, 2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Senate Staffers Warned to Stay Clear of Drudge Report". Fox News. 2008-02-28. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/09/senate-warns-staffers-stay-clear-drudge-report/. Retrieved March 9, 2010,.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "Blumenthal Pays $2,500 To Settle Drudge Suit". Wall Street Journal. 2001-05-04. p. B.8.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Kurtz, Howard (2001-05-02). "Clinton Aide Settles Libel Suit Against Matt Drudge -- at a Cost". Washington Post. pp. C01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30046-2001May1. Retrieved 2007-04-11.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Drudge, Matt (2001-05-01). "May Day: Lawsuit Against Drudge Dropped; Blumenthal Pays Cash To Get Out!". Drudge Report. Archived from the original on 2001-05-06. http://web.archive.org/web/20010506000105/http://drudgereport.com/$2500.htm. Retrieved 2006-12-15.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Tim McDonald (2001). "Online Matt Drudge Libel Suit Comes to 'Wimpy Conclusion'". Newsfactor.com. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/9420.html. Retrieved 2007-07-30.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Polier, Alexandra (2004-06-07). "John Kerry intern scandal - Alexandra Polier's account". New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/politics/national/features/9221/index5.html. Retrieved 2004-06-07.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Special Reports Personal Collection. Drudge Report Archives. Retrieved on 2007-04-02</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Drudge, Matt (April 2, 2007). "McCain heckled by CNN reporter". Drudge Report. http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2007/04/01/20070401_175303_flash.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-02.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "CNN reporter slams Drudge's charge that he 'heckled' McCain; Exclusive video confirms his claim". Rawstory. April 2, 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-04-06. http://web.archive.org/web/20070406173653/http://rawstory.com/news/2007/CNN_reporter_slams_Drudges_charge_that_0402.html. Retrieved 2007-04-02.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ CNN's Ware fires back at Drudge report about 'heckling', USA Today April 2, 2007</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "FOXNews.com - Oprah Denies Report She's Balking at Having Palin on Show - Celebrity Gossip". www.foxnews.com. 2008-09-05. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,417523,00.html. Retrieved 2009-02-20.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Harris, Paul (2008-09-07). "US election: Storm as Oprah says no to Palin interview". London: guardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/07/uselections2008.sarahpalin1?gusrc=rss&feed=global. Retrieved 2009-02-20. "Some experts believe the issue, initially reported on Drudge ... was a media ploy to drag Winfrey's backing of Obama into the election and show a media bias against the Republicans"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ a b Fuoco, Michael A. (2008-10-25). "McCain volunteer admits to hoax". www.post-gazette.com. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08299/922849-53.stm/. Retrieved 2009-03-03. "One photo appeared on The Drudge Report on Thursday, setting off a storm of media attention."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ Meg White. "Ashley Todd, PA Racist Hoax "Victim," Was Paid Organizer for College Republican National Committee, Not a Volunteer". BuzzFlash.com. http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/506. Retrieved 2008-10-29.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "SHOCK: McCAIN VOLUNTEER ATTACKED AND MUTILATED IN PITTSBURGH - "B" carved into 20 yr old Woman's Face". http://www.opednews.com/articles/Attack-on-McCain-Staffer-A-by-E-Nelson-081024-810.html. Retrieved 2008-10-23.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Friday October 24, 2008 - Countdown with Keith Olbermann- msnbc.com". www.msnbc.msn.com. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27405321/. Retrieved 2009-03-03.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "McCain volunteer made up robbery story". http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9411R800&show_article=1. Retrieved 2008-10-24.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">^ "McCain Campaign Pushed Now-Discredited Attack Story/publisher=TPM". 2008-10-24. http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/mccain_aide_gave_reporters_inc.php.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[edit] External links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Report The Official Drudge Report Website</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Report Archives (since Nov. 2001)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Tracker - The top Drudge Report headlines of the past 2 weeks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Archives of the Drudge Report at The Internet Archive (less comprehensive than DrudgeReportArchives.com, but dates back to Dec. 1998)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Radio Archives & Podcast - MP3 archive and podcast of Matt Drudge's Sunday evening radio show</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Early history of the Drudge Report</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge Report RSS Feed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Matt Drudge articles at Media Matters for America</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Linking news sites, Matt Drudge creates an Internet success, by Richard Pachter, The Miami Herald, September 1, 2003</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Secrets of Drudge Inc By Geoff Keighley</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blumenthal v. Drudge Opinion by Judge Paul Friedman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drudge_Report"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Categories: News websites | Lewinsky scandal | News aggregators | Conservatism in the United States | Alternative media | American websites | Political organizations in the United States | Political weblogs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the other hand, what of Drudge's own cross-promotional sins? In the early days of the Drudge Report, he routinely ridiculed Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. empire. But then in November 1997, Drudge's coverage of the mega-corporation's many entities started growing more favorable, and by mid-1998 the so-called citizen-journalist was routinely hyping the Fox News Channel's "shocking reports" and "ace reporters" in the allegedly independent Drudge Report. Did this change in attitude have anything todo with a certain DRUDGEREPORTFOXNEWSCHANNEL MARRIAGE that occurred during this time? Hypocrisy: never boring.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of course, Drudge did noisily divorce Murdoch last November, so now it's easier for him to work the renegade persona again with a relatively straight face. "I'm not beholden to them in any way," he rails to his cat at one point. "I'm not carried on their air. I'm not a byline in their dirty print. I don't use their bandwidth."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bk rev</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.soundbitten.com/DrudgeBook.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://climatecrocks.com/2010/11/05/the-greatest-threat-to-the-planet-the-right-wing-echo-chamber/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">echo chamber has no corrctiver mechanism (well funded, self contained, critical mass this self-perpetuating)?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">living will provision a gop idea?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul Waldman, of Media Matters and the Gadfly,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Waldman notes:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; &nbsp;In their repugnant book “The Way to Win,” ABC News political director Mark Halperin and John Harris of The Politico (and formerly of the Washington Post) explain that, as journalists, “Matt Drudge rules our world.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; &nbsp;In other words, when Drudge—a right-wing operative who closely coordinates his activities with the Republican National Committee—puts up a sensational story on his website, Halperin, Harris and the rest of their cohorts simply have no choice but to run off and cover it, whether it is true or not.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the case of the Madrassa issue, in what was seen as a marketing ploy to crow about the differences between CNN and Fox, CNN actually investigated the Insight/Fox lie about Obama’s school being a hotbed of fundamentalism. Their journalist found the truth—that the school Obama attended was benign and taught about various religions. But not before, as one example, the Washington Post’s media reporter Howard Kurtz, who is also CNN’s media reporter, featured the charges prominently in the Post, framing his story with the Insight/Fox lies, not with skepticism. He eventually followed up with more critical reporting and also debunked the story on CNN.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/the-lies-they-tell-how-to-stop-the-fox-propaganda-machine/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wa post on lawsuit</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clinton Aide Settles Libel Suit Against Matt Drudge -- at a Cost</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Howard Kurtz</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washington Post Staff Writer</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wednesday, May 2, 2001; Page C01</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nearly four years after filing a much-ballyhooed $30 million libel suit against cybergossip Matt Drudge, former White House aide Sidney Blumenthal settled the case yesterday for something less than he once demanded.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Unfortunately, he is backed by unlimited funds from political supporters who use a tax-exempt foundation. He'd like to see the lawsuit go on endlessly. Bad publicity for him is good for his kind of business. Drudge has placed enough burden on our family for four years and we're moving on with our lives."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blumenthal said the suit has cost him tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. He said he agreed to pay $2,500 to Drudge's Los Angeles attorney, Manny Klausner, as "nuisance value" because Klausner had traveled to Washington for a deposition of writer David Brock that was canceled. Klausner is associated with the libertarian-oriented Individual Rights Foundation, which has picked up all of Drudge's costs through a legal defense fund.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What was once a high-profile lawsuit nearly expired from inactivity. After being prodded by the judge in the case to demonstrate some progress, Blumenthal's side recently issued subpoenas to two dozen people -- including this reporter, whose summons over The Washington Post's initial account of the matter was dropped -- but never took the depositions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On April 19, Blumenthal's lawyer, William McDaniel, sent a one-line e-mail to Klausner: "Just put an end to this."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since "both sides distrusted each other," as Drudge put it, the case was not settled until Blumenthal signed the agreement at 4 p.m. yesterday before a federal magistrate, with Drudge participating from Miami by fax and conference call.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drudge has made great political hay out of the fact that Blumenthal consulted his White House superiors at the time -- namely, President Clinton and Vice President Gore -- before proceeding with the private suit.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawsuit raised potentially groundbreaking issues about electronic journalism because Blumenthal and his wife also sued America Online, which carried Drudge's column. AOL argued that it was not acting as a publisher because it simply reprinted the column rather than supervising or editing it. A judge later agreed, severing AOL from the case.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his apology, a day after posting the unfounded rumor, Drudge told The Post that "someone was using me to try to go after" the Blumenthal story and that "this is a case of using me to broadcast dirty laundry. I think I've been had." Drudge had not called Blumenthal for comment, saying he didn't know how to reach him.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The mistake brought Drudge, then earning $35,000 a year, a major dose of national publicity, five months before he was the first to publish details of the Monica Lewinsky story.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blumenthal dismissed as "ridiculous" Drudge's suggestion that he abandoned the suit because the other side planned to depose a new witness who had derogatory information about him. "It's a continuation of the libel," Blumenthal said. "Too bad he doesn't know what the line of decency is. I hope I've injected in some small way some element of caution in those who would imitate Drudge's methods."</font></div></div>