Mixed feelings as Daily Record gets drudged

Daily Record ^ | 05/01/03 | Dennis Lyons

[Alissa]

Twice in the past two months, the Daily Record Web site has been "Drudged."

In March, reporter Rob Jennings wrote a story about an appearance by former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite at Drew University. The story included Cronkite's criticism of the war with Iraq and wound up as a link on The Drudge Report Web page (www.drudgereport.com), which encourages reader tips about interesting stories. The Drudge Report is a site with a conservative slant that is part good muckraking reporting, part gossip, part links to other sources and definitely one of the hottest sites on the Internet today.

[SauronOfMordor]

For a long time, the liberal media has buried stories that the Left doesn't like in the back pages. Since Drudge and FR, the "back pages" have become front pages

[Phantom Lord]

"Drudge posted an allegation that White House aide Sidney Blumenthal, 'has a spousal abuse past that has been effectively covered up.'

Drudge claimed the source of this information as 'GOP operatives.' When confronted with a libel suit by Blumenthal's attorney, Drudge apologized for the mistake.

Blumenthal pushed forward with a libel suit against Drudge. And in the end, Blumenthal ended up dropping the suit and paying Drudge money!

[Pete]

It is a matter of deep concern that, due in part to the popularity of this site, The Drudge Report is just as capable of mass marketing misinformation as it is the facts.

I have been reading Drudge since he was emailing out his report and it was ending up on alt.current.events.clinton.whitewater. His inaccuracy rate is greatly exaggerated and better than many newspapers. Also, he doesn't hide his retractions.

Brand's article cites one example:

"Drudge posted an allegation that White House aide Sidney Blumenthal, 'has a spousal abuse past that has been effectively covered up.'

This is always the example.

Drudge claimed the source of this information as 'GOP operatives.' When confronted with a libel suit by Blumenthal's attorney, Drudge apologized for the mistake.

This is simply not true. The story was only on Drudge's site for a few hours. Essentially, Matt was intentionally misled. He realized this fairly quickly, wishdrew the story and immediately published an apology. It was days later that Blumenthal sued for libel. Sid did that when he realized that he could use the mistake to silence Drudge, whom he viewed as an enemy of the Clinton Administration. It was the first time in history that a White House had sued a journalist. Incidently, the court sided with Matt in the suit.

[r9etb]

What Mr. Dennis Lyons meant to say was: Thanks, Drudge, for the publicity.

It is a matter of deep concern that, due in part to the popularity of this site, The Drudge Report is just as capable of mass marketing misinformation as it is the facts.

The fact of the matter is, Drudge posts very few things of his own making: it's primarily links to papers like the Record.

If he's gonna accuse Drudge of spreading "misinformation," then the source of the misinformation would be ... papers like the Daily Record. If reading articles in his own paper consitutes "misinformation," then perhaps Lyons' caution might be better directed toward his own newsroom.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

It is a matter of deep concern that, due in part to the popularity of this site, The Drudge Report is just as capable of mass marketing misinformation as it is the facts....

Brand's assessment is that Drudge's original material is "between 80 and 95 percent accurate." I don't know enough about it to say if that's valid.

So besides saying "thank you" to Matt Drudge, these slugs from the Daily Record are also saying "the accuracy of the Drudge Report is really questionable and we'd really appreciate it if we could go back to the old days when we could control all the news..." Well, Mr. Lyons: the genie is out of the bottle and your controls (spin, distortion, etc.) no longer work. Your articles will get circulated when it reveals the anti-Americanism of contemptuous fools like Walter Cronkite and whenever else your little community paper prints something worthy of focus beyond the bounds of Northern NJ.

[freedomlover]

Welcome to the internet, Moron

(not you Alissa)

[q_an_a]

"It is a matter of deep concern that, due in part to the popularity of this site, The Drudge Report is just as capable of mass marketing misinformation as it is the facts."

This from a reporter showing only that Drudge LINKED their web site. So if he can send out misinformation he can point out others silly stories too. This is what most creates fear in the media, that their crap will be exposed!

[tdadams]

It is a matter of deep concern that, due in part to the popularity of this site, The Drudge Report is just as capable of mass marketing misinformation as it is the facts.

This is just so much sour grapes in light of how many times even "respected" newspapers run corrections on their stories. Just this morning, it's come out that the New York Times (the paper of record?) has had to print 50 corrections to stories from just a single reporter in the last four years.