Posted on 01/26/2012 8:15:05 AM PST by el_texicano
I’d like you to take a look at DrudgeReport. There is an all-out war on Newt Gingrich, not merely by the left-wing media, but particularly on the right side of the political divide. Drudge has run as many as nine negative articles about Gingrich simultaneously, but he is running few negative articles about Romney, and those he does run are only half-negative, so it’s becoming clear that Drudge is trying to manipulate the outcome in the direction of a result he prefers. I surely hope conservatives realize that nobody in media is pure, because everybody has biases. In the case of Drudge, his “developing” take-down story in the middle of last week over the ABC News Marianne Gingrich interview story was his first attempt to ruin Gingrich’s momentum. When within hours, that attempt failed, making it clear nobody would buy the “big smear” story. Instead, Drudge backed off and began his “death by one-thousand cuts” strategy, and this is what you are now witnessing.
Drudge has learned the lesson well over his years as the prime link aggregation site on the Internet, and indeed, it could be said the term was invented to describe his page. The problem with Drudge, and it has always been his problem, is that he editorializes in the way he places links to stories in order to manipulate his audience. His all-out war on Gingrich is a perfect example. He doesn’t need to write one negative word himself. He merely decides which stories, where they are placed, and how long they will endure in that position on his page. A week ago, on Thursday morning, you should have noticed if you visited his site that he was still pushing the Marianne Gingrich story despite the fact that it had already been debunked, and that story persisted as the lead on his page until Thursday night’s debate. Ordinarily, top stories are not that long-lived on Drudge, but in the case of Gingrich, they go on and on and on.
It’s also the urgency he conveys to his audience. As I pointed out during last week’s disgraceful episode, when the Gingrich daughters responded to the trash flooding the Drudge site in red letters accompanied by his flashing light symbol, I asked whether he would now treat the antithesis involving the Newt daughters with similar urgency. Predictably, as was my point, he did not. This unwillingness to give equal coverage of the debunking of a story indicates a bias, and while I’m accustomed to that coming from most media sources, to see it so openly on Drudge is a bit of a gut-punch.
It’s clear that this is a strategy to take down Newt, and whether he’s coordinating with others, or simply acting out his own political preferences is impossible to determine. Thursday morning, he continues to run a story by Elliot Abrams from back in the 1980s when Newt was critical of Reagan’s State Department, primarily, but what Drudge fails to mention is that Abrams was the assistant Secretary of State who was under criticism by Gingrich at the time. On the article itself, you need to flip to page two to learn this by reading the biographical note about Abrams if you didn’t already know it. Most people don’t, and most people don’t make it to page two. Abrams is also a Council on Foreign Relations player, in case you didn’t know.
What all of this makes clear to me is what I’ve long suspected: Drudge is part of the GOP’s establishment now. I’ve had questions about some of the stories he’s placed on his site for years, but he’s the eight-hundred pound Internet gorilla, and there’s little a small voice can say about it. Some of you will rightly note that he couldn’t run stories that don’t exist, but I will respond that he already has. That was the meaning of the entire sad episode of last week with the ABC NEws/Marianne Gingrich story: There was no news there, but his placement and pushing of the theme made it a story. Whether you prefer Gingrich, or any of the others, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Drudge is definitely displaying his bias, whatever the motive. This is why I have a fundamental distrust of big media, left or right, and it’s also why you shouldn’t be a headlines surfer. Headlines are frequently misleading, and until you know the guts of a story, it’s best not to form conclusions, because it is too easy to be misled. We’re all news consumers, but as with any other outlet, be it the “mainstream media” or Drudge, or even this site, you are best always to bear in mind that well-worn but too frequently unobserved phrase: Caveat emptor.
Well, Swiss bank accounts are often used to evade scrutiny from law enforcement and other sources. I consider it a story.
They are counting on conservative voters who now are virulantly opposed to Mitt sucking it up in the end, falling in line, and voting for him anyway in the general no matter what carnage they cause in the primaries along the way. Perhaps I’m wrong, but unlike the past, I suspect enough Tea Party groups will organize behind a 3rd or 4th party candidate if Mitt gets the nomination resulting in perhaps a 10% or more peal off thus deep sixing Mitt in the general.
Willard is all about the continued control of the Treasury and Fed by The Goldman Sack.
So much for that idea.....!
I don’t know what the problem is with reporting the truth. Newt is an egotistical, arrogant, morally corrupt, big fat liar. So if Drudge and Ann Coulter et. al., want to report that, what is the big deal?
Fine, support the homosexual agenda loving Drudge and Coulter.
You dimwits will have your Romney due to your ignorance.
Before reading this article, I had visited Drudge’s site, and noticed the blatant anti-Gingrich postings. I decided I had had enough and sent him an e-mail confronting him on his obvious anti-Gingrich and in-the-tank for Romney stance, and questioned why he felt the need to persuade rather than report.
I’ve decided to avoid his website for the near future because of how he is trying to persuade his audience.
I did, also, and did some postings on other forums asking others, too, also... and not to link to his site...
All of the USA Elite in the RinoCrat UniParty are about to find out just how lonely they really are...
No more Drudge for me, baby.
Man, it feels like we’re battling TWO parties now! Dems and RINOs.
Just heard Newt over the air ...articulating this very idea!
GO NEWT!!!!!!! HIT THEM IN THE NUTS TONIGHT IN THE DEBATE, NEWT — NO HOLDING BACK!!
I like Newt, the “egotistical: and “arrogant” part of your self righteous post, but beg to differ on Newt, the
“morally corrupt” and “big fat liar stuff”. Please roll out your own resume of moral superiority against the guy who converted, confessed, repented, ( and for those in Rio Linda, that would be having asked for and received forgiveness), doing so rather openly for all to see. Newtie didn’t have to run for president, as he said.
Heck, he could have chosen the fetal position preferring darkness, but he didn’t. Too bad for his critics.
Snip: . . . of online media manipulation isn’t exactly new. In fact, it goes back well before Romney’s 2008 campaign got underway in earnest. It seems to date back to sometime in 2005, when RNC operatives arranged a meeting between Matt Drudge and Matt Rhodes — a highly placed operative in the Romney organization.
I noticed that too.
Has Drudge disabled his contact link? I am using my IPad and cannot use that link at his site.
I did too. Said I’d never be back. And I won’t.
“Has Drudge disabled his contact link?”
Apparently so. There is nothing in the section where the comments were before. Must have pissed him off.
GOOD...
The establishment is afraid that Newt cannot win. Thats the bottom line. I understand, and it makes me sick.
1) I don’t see ads on Drudge, If I did I would give them both barrels.
2) Don’t go to drudge and don’t click on any Newt stories if you do.
Why would any intelligent person allow one website on the internet to guide all their reading? (Drudgereport)
I have always felt that the more sources one uses, from the left and from the right, the better one can reach more balanced conclusions.
And the final caveat: “Do not believe everything you read in print.”
Opps. my bad...it looks like he moved it to lower in the web page.
It is there. Keep giving him grief.
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