The influence of Drudge
When a story is 'Drudged' – carried on the Drudge Report website – its level of hits will increase several times:
- The Drudge Report is one of the top 500 websites.
- Founded in 1995 based on entertainment news but switched to politics.
- Run by Matt Drudge.
- Required reading for journalists and politicians in the US.
Other Drudge scoops include:
- Photos of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama wearing a turban and Somali robes.
- In February 2008, news of Prince Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan was kept secret because of a news blackout deal agreed across the UK media, but the blackout was broken first by an Australian magazine – which no-one noticed until the sttory was picked up by Drudge.
In 1998, Brill's Content, a US magazine that adopted a critical vieew of media butt cloed in 2001, reckoned that of 51 stories the site claimed as exclusives (Jan-Sept 1998), 31 were actually exclusive stories. Of those:
- 10 were untrue
- 11 were true
- 10 were of debatable accuracy
The next page explores fighting off the lawyers ...
