I’m writing an essay and am using the Drudge report as an example of something (doesn’t matter what). I have a couple of questions which no amount of websearching and research seems able to solve so in desoeration I’m turning to the ever reliable Teeming Millions.
Firstly, does the Drudge Report qualify as a ‘blog’?
Secondly, does Matt Drudge himself ever actually write a single word of his own? Or is the entire “report” merely links to other articles in other newspapers?
Depending on how you define “blog”, sure. But you’d probably wind up redefining it to the point that CNN.com or MSNBC.com are also 'blogs. So I’d say “no”.
The bulk of the content you get through the site is the links, but the site will write their own run-downs of a link (sometimes a little twisted to one side or another, depending on what’s more “inciting”), and on particularly significant stories will write up their own, usually followed by “Developing…”
Now, as to whether it’s Matt Drudge himself actually sitting at the keyboard and writing it out, I have no idea.
My own feeling is that Drudge’s site is not a blog. I picture a blog as little more than a LiveJournal with (some) editing. The Drudge site is a complete (if simple) web site with several built-in functions and some interaction with other sites and tools.
As to how Drudge goes about his business, you can find references scattered among these sites and interviews:
It’s really just a website. There’s not enough personal commentary by Drudge for it to qualify as blog or live journal. One popular blogger Collunsbury, talking about the middle east and near east, writes more commentary in a day than Drudge does in a week, and holds down a job besides.
It’s fairly obvious (to me at least) just from the writing style, that almost all the breaking news commentary that Drudge does is the work if one man. He might have some assistance with the little comment taglines that accompany some linked stories, but there’s generally relatively little commentary unless there’s a breaking story, so it’s not like maintaining the topicality of his web site is some herculean task, even for one man. As a practical matter I would imagine he has an assistant or two at this point to allow him some free time.
IMO the website is super popular because of three things.
1: The easily navigated link collection
2: The fact that Drudge has become THE source for many political insiders and frustrated whistleblowers to leak to, and through,
3: He will run with a breaking story before it is confirmed. This may be irresponsible, but it means more often than not, that he is first, or close to first, with breaking news, and is hour to days ahead of TV and newspapers in many cases.