Talk:Drudge Report

The irony

Why was "conservative" removed from the first sentence? Has the source suddenly become mainstream or centrist? GaɱingFørFuɲ³⁶⁵ 00:55, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Well, wouldn't we all agree that now it is more than just a little bit absurd that this is in the lede: " . . . run by Matt Drudge . . . generally regarded as a conservative publication . . . though its . . . political leanings have recently been placed in question"

Talk about, understatement, hyperbole, and obfuscation!

It may used to have been conservative (even up to 2017), but now it is obviously the opposite.

Considering, for example: the beacon flashing "Drudge" red-bolder-headline today [2020-6-6] is: "ROMNEY WILL NOT SUPPORT TRUMP IN NOVEMBER!" [Really?!? What a shocking surprise! Romney! Of ALL people!], I'd say that Drudgereport at this point is in the same category as Huffington Post. 96.239.90.181 (talk) 01:53, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Drudge's company name and U.S. Trademark registration

As I write this, the article does not mention the name of Drudge's company or his successful "Drudge Report" trademark filing, so here it is, all public domain information:

• State of Florida Division of Corporations - Digital, LLC
• Florida Companies Directory - Digital, LLC

As an individual (not Digital, LLC), Matthew Drudge was granted U.S. Trademark protection for the phrase "Drudge Report" on January 15, 2019, filed on May 15, 2018. He did not get protection for the word "Report" or for the use of any particular font stylings or color, just the basic letters forming the words. The filing included a screenshot of his website. He used a Trump photo and headline "TRUMP GOES BIG" from 2018. The Miami, Florida address given for the trademark registration is the same address for his Digital, LLC business name. Why he sought trademark protection as an individual and not under his company name is unclear. However, such an action would allow him to sell the website specifically in the future and still use his business name for other commercial projects. I don't intend to edit the article, so I am providing this information for anyone who is interested. 5Q5|^✉ 17:25, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I may add a line or two to the article eventually if no one else does. 5Q5|^✉ 13:33, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

What happened to Drudge?

The page massively supported Trump in 2016 and mocked him throughout the entire 2020 re-election campaign. The decline of the website confirmed by the Alexa ranking is massive, the page has lost nearly half of its readers compared with only one year ago indicating that many Conservatives and patriots are leaving this place as a source of information. Any further information why Drudge Report changed so drastically? 80.131.51.178 (talk) 02:58, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

If evidence ever comes forward citable to a reliable or notable source making the claim that Drudge was paid to make the site switch to anti-Trump in 2020 and/or a bonus in the millions offered if Biden won and became President then it might be suitable for inclusion in the article. As of this date I haven't seen any business record evidence that the website has been sold; however, it might be possible to furtively structure a deal in the millions so that editorial control was sold while Drudge remains technically the backseat owner on record. Without Drudge, it's not easy to continue calling it the Drudge Report. 5Q5|^✉ 13:46, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Suggestions for update

I have made some preliminary changes here [[1]], while leaving the current structure/organization intact—but believe it's well worth adding and/or expanding some related parts of the article. A couple brief examples:

• The "business model" needs to explain how unique the Drudge Report is, how much it's worth (recent estimates of $100-200+ million), etc.
• A "traffic" section should be separate. And the most recent and ongoing decline attributed to a change in Trump coverage means little without an understanding of the enormous traffic Drudge has historically attracted (as well as a huge prior decrease widely attributed to the explosion of Twitter and other social media).

Those are just a start—the Drudge Report was and continues to be an amazing phenomenon, one that nobody has been able to replicate, and IMHO the current article fails to convey how unusual it's history has been, in so many different ways. Any thoughts? And anyone want to collaborate on adding and organizing some of the above? Thanks so much! Elle Kpyros (talk) 17:15, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

The Drudge Report is just a three-column newspaper, a masthead with three columns beneath it containing textual news, some imagery, separated by vertical lines. The three-column format has been around in newspapers since the 1700s. Drudge can't copyright the format and would lose any infringement or trademark lawsuit if someone did their own "Report." He couldn't get trademark protection in 2019 for the word "Report" because of the commonly used terms "news report," "special report," etc. It would require a lot of start-up money for tech support and be willing to find links 24/7 to create a competitor website. Unique? Only in name recognition and influence I guess. The Connecticut-based Capitol Report and New York-based Empire Report have used an identical format to the Drudge Report for years. See this 2018 news story on both. I've never edited the Drudge Report article before, and don't intent to become a regular, but I'm working on a line or two to mention his business name and trademark filing, probably for next week. 5Q5|^✉ 17:14, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like an interesting and welcome addition. I don't know about trademarks and the like—but I'd point out that although a competitor would only require a single person with a computer, no one has imitated him with anything remotely like his level of success. The two sites you cite appear to be direct imitations of Drudge, and whatever its strengths may be, the Capitol Report got 12 million views a year—while Drudge has had 1500 times more, with 1.5 billion views in a single month, putting it ahead of Disney (including ESPN, ABC News, etc.), Yahoo, Google, Time Warner, and every other media source save MSN. That's more than triple the numbers for The New York Times. Drudge's format—it's almost an anti-format—is surely a throwback to newspapers, but it was unique in the world of internet news. And what's most remarkable isn't the look of the site, but the influence wielded by a man in his bedroom who simply aggregates links. He drove enormous amounts of traffic to specific stories and outlets. What explains his incredible success—his curatorial skill or "taste" in articles?

Elle Kpyros (talk) 18:49, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

The Drudge Report uses a javascript code to auto refresh the page (Google search) at regular intervals; thus, massively inflating its page views. In addition, since it's a link site, the same people return multiple times to go to the next link. I would trust only the number of unique visitors in a site like Drudge. Page views have less meaning if you know the system is being gamed. 5Q5|^✉ 13:24, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

From 5Q5 - PROPOSED ADDITION TO THE ARTICLE as the opening paragraph in the Business model section:

Matt Drudge's business entity in Florida is a privately owned company called Digital, LLC, a limited liability company. As an individual, Drudge applied for and was granted a U.S. Trademark registration for the phrase "Drudge Report" on January 15, 2019, filed on May 15, 2018. The registration excludes the word "Report" from protection outside of the exact two-word phrase use and is for "standard characters without claim to any particular font style, size, or color." The address recorded for the owner of the U.S. Trademark; that is, Matthew Drudge, and Drudge's Florida business entity Digital, LLC are the same.

The references will of course appear in the article's lower reference section. If there is agreement I will publish it. 5Q5|^✉ 16:41, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

FROM 5Q5 - PROPOSED REVISION, SIMPLIFIED:

Matt Drudge's business entity in Florida is a privately owned limited liability company called Digital, LLC. Drudge applied for and was granted a U.S. Trademark registration for the phrase "Drudge Report" on January 15, 2019, filed on May 15, 2018. The registration excludes the word "Report" from protection outside of the exact two-word phrase use and is for "standard characters without claim to any particular font style, size, or color."

I omitted the last sentence about addresses matching, as it seems unnecessary, though it is true. If there is no objection after a week sitting here on the talk page, I will go ahead and publish it in the article, sometime next week. 5Q5|^✉ 17:00, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

 Done. 5Q5|^✉ 15:33, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Use of Russian government sources

As of 23:45, 8 April 2023 (UTC), Drudge has a second leading headline directly linked to Sputnik (news agency), a Russian propaganda outlet devoted to state-sponsored disinformation. Drudge has done this quite a bit over the years, and is not alone, with most right-leaning, conservative news aggregators making use of Russian disinformation sources to criticize liberals and Democrats in the US. I would like to see a sourced section in this article describing this phenomenon of the right wing in the US depending on Russian disinformation for their news. Viriditas (talk) 23:44, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Outdated Information

The Drudge report is no longer conservative, nor is it no longer owned by Matt Drudge: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/matt-drudge-logs-off 172.79.199.4 (talk) 05:58, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

I didn't read the whole thing thoroughly, but it seems very speculative, and they never say definitively he sold it. –CWenger (^ • @) 13:54, 30 August 2023 (UTC)