I was recently shown www.drudgereport.com. I understand that it is a right-winged media outlet but is it real news? I seem to remember them reporting that the “Janet Jackson” breast exposure was planned on the night of the superbowl… I need an unbiased answer… is this a credible source? Remember folks, I said UNBIASED!
The Drudge web site is a clearinghouse of news links. While Drudge does have his own news stories, the majority are links to actual new stories of his own choosing.
Most of Drudge’s news consists of links to other news outlets and in those cases it’s crdedible, or at least as credible as those other new sources. The stuff that is exclusive to Drudge is more hit or miss. He’s probably right more often than he’s wrong but he uses some shaky sources and occasionally he gets something really wrong. He once reported that former Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal was a wife beater and had to withdraw it when the story proved untrue. He was later sued by Blumenthal.
Earlier this year, Drudge was responsible for the phony “intern scandal” which briefly surged around John Kerry but turned out to be unfounded.
I’m a regular Drudge reader and I’m decidedly not a conservative. I think he has a pretty high accuracy rate for most of his exclusive reports (hovering somewhere in the 90-95% range, maybe) but once in a while he really blows one.
I’d say he’s mostly credible, if biased, but he’s not completely reliable.
One thing that seperates Drudge is that he will report with a single source that HE deems credible. Most journalist insist on confirmation. His approach allows him to often be first with a story, but it comes at the price of accuracy. Drudge, is definitely conservative, but that doesn’t mean he is not credible. However, it is my opinion that people should seek to use a variety of news sources from the right and the left (that’s why I also listen to NPR and read several UK newspaper links each day). Drudge, shares my aversion to authority to the point that he wasn’t even capable of working with Fox News (he wanted to use an abortion picture on his show, that Fox thought was over the line). He also seems to have a personal war going on with Fox’s O’Reilly, not sure why but I would bet it goes back to his days at Fox News (just speculation).
Drudge fits nicely with other medias.
Drudge isnt a source by itself, but you can generally pick up on trends of where the media might be going, and maybe get an early scoop on some stories.
But as a standalone news source, expect to be ridiculed by others if you blurt out everything he says as gospel 
I’m going to agree with this crowd. My news sources are Drudge, NPR, the BBC, the Early Bird, and the AP wire feeds at MyWay. Between all those sources, I rarely get caught flat-footed when someone starts a conversation, “Did you hear about…”
Drudge also likes to link to stories that are a counterpoint to what you’re hearing about in the mainstream. If CNN says the bodies are piling up, Drudge points out that the body bags at Dover aren’t all Iraq war dead - seven are Shuttle victims, some may be State Dept. employees who died overseas, etc. etc.
It’s good to get the other side of some of these stories; more and more often, I find it rare that a source publishes the whole truth.
The difference between Drudge and real journalism is that Matt Drudge never checks anything. He unapologetically admits this, and he says he doesn’t have time for that.
He fills a different function giving us poor slobs a hint of what the guys on the inside (journalists) know or suspect, but are not yet ready to go to press with. It’s like the NSA/CIA some sources are “early” and some sources are “solid” rarely are they the same source. Drudges father has made a real contribution to serious research with his www.refdesk.com . I have often used the links at that site to conduct research on various issues.
…at least when the stories are proving embarassing to Republicans. I don’t see Drudge being so eager to “set things straight” if the mainstream news is negative towards the left.
The Drudge Report is a tabloid version of political events as opposed to an actual news source. Occasionally a big breaking scandal will come from Drudge – I believe he was the first to report some of the events in “Monicagate”, for example. However, he also seems to have a high error rate. His facts tend to be mixed with rumors and speculation, some of which, such as the Blumenthal wife beating allegation, don’t appear to have any basis in reality.
On a personal level, I find his willingness to run defamatory stories without checking his sources to be highly unethical. I don’t read the Drudge report often, so does anyone know if he ever prints a retraction for incorrect stories?