Talk:Drudge Report

Lead change to "right-leaning"?

Right now the opening sentence calls it a "conservative, right-wing news aggregator". "Right-wing" is a politically charged word, and two of the three sources cited for it may be problematic. I was recently involved in a discussion on the HuffPost article that resulted in a change of the opening sentence. The descriptor "politically left-leaning" was added to the opening sentence. Further discussion of the sites politics is discussed in the appropriate section of the article.

I know we all want Wikipedia to be as objective as possible. There is at least one reliable source that uses the term "left-wing" to describe the HuffPost. But that is a politically charged word and not helpful to include in the HuffPost article.

I suggest mirroring the wording of the opening sentence in the HuffPost article and describing the Drudge Report as a "politically right-leaning news aggregator". Then, like the HuffPost article, the Drudge Report's full political leanings are discussed in the appropriate section of the article. What do you think? -- Auctoris (talk) 04:45, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

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)

Slight issues with article

I would suggest that "(last known)" be dropped from the "Owner" field, seeing as how the article states that Drudge has been confirmed to still be the owner in the last paragraph of "Political leanings". The sentence "Site viewership is also down nearly 30 percent in that same time-frame." also appears to be out of place with the rest of the lead, perhaps that could be fixed also. 91.129.108.3 (talk) 20:33, 23 February 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)