Newsweek's Isikoff on Matt Drudge: 'Much Less of a Factor than He Was Five Years Ago'

Business & Media Institute ^ | April 24, 2008 | Jeff Poor

[RJL]

Sadly he has also embraced some dubious advertising and scripting techniques with popups, animations, etc. A good firewall is a must.

I haven't visited Drudge in years, that's exactly what drove me away.

[BurbankKarl]

Drudge is making 7 large a year, what is Isikoff taking home?

[dr_lew]

It’s not much of a site and Matt has become even less of a factor since he stopped doing his weakly(yes, on purpose) radio show.

I was just thinking today about how he's faded. I think he's probably just worn out, for one thing. He always used to say he did it all himself. I think he lost a lot giving up his show, too. It wasn't always great, but it did have the stamp of his unique personality, and it gave me and a lot of others a connection to him. Without it, he's just another web site. Finally, the world, or the internet, has passed him by. He used to rail against "bloggers" and what a horrible name it was ( of all things, ) and perhaps he recognized them as "the next thing".

[Crazy Larry]

I think Drudge is just as important today.

I don’t think his value is in finding the stories behind the scenes, such as Monica et al, but rather as a news editor that paints the news so differently than MSM that it is a must see. He takes everyone elses news, and displays it without the bias - no - without the liberal bias that plagues MSM. He finds the stories that MSM buries, and allows us to find them without having to scrub the news ourselves.

While I think Free Republic allows the same thing, it isn’t combined into a front page as Drudge is.

Sure I am bored with the Drudgereport sometimes, but I can think of no equal as news editors go for my desire for news.