[5] The site prior to the 2020 United States presidential election was generally regarded as a conservative[6][7][8] publication, but its ownership and political leanings have been questioned following business model changes in mid-to-late 2019.
In its early days Drudge maintained the website from his home in Miami Beach, Florida, with help from assistants in story selection and headline writing.
[2] Curl, who served as morning shift editor, left the site in 2014 and, with Drudge's blessing, in January 2015 launched his own aggregator Right Read, for The Washington Times.
[18] Drudge, who began his website in 1997 as a supplement to his $10 per year e-mail newsletter,[19] received national attention in 1996 when he broke the news that Jack Kemp would be Republican Bob Dole's running mate in the 1996 US presidential election.
In 1998, Drudge made national waves when he broke the news that Newsweek magazine had information on an inappropriate relationship between "a White House intern" and President Bill Clinton—the Monica Lewinsky scandal—but was withholding publication.
In April 2009, the Associated Press announced that it would be examining the fair use doctrine, used by sites like Google and the Drudge Report to justify the use of AP content without payment.
[25][needs update] On May 4, 2009, the US Attorney General's office issued a warning to employees in Massachusetts not to visit the Drudge Report and other sites because of malicious code contained in some of the advertising on the website.
warned that advertising at the Drudge Report, The New York Times, Yahoo, Google, MySpace and other sites carried malware that could infect computers.
[citation needed] It remains entirely written in unscripted HTML, with a mostly monochromatic color scheme of black boldface monospaced font text on a plain white background.
When no such source is available, either because the story is "developing",[33] with little known details at the time, or is an exclusive scoop, a special page is created on the Drudge Report servers, which contains text and sometimes images.
[52] Jesse Swick of The New Republic notes that the Drudge Report frequently links to stories that cast doubt upon global warming.
"[53] Ben Shapiro wrote, "The American left can't restrict Internet usage or ban talk radio, so it de-legitimizes these news sources.
[60] Matt Drudge's business entity in Florida is a privately owned limited liability company called Digital, LLC.
[64][65] The registration excludes the word "Report" from protection outside of the exact two-word phrase use and is for "standard characters without claim to any particular font style, size, or color."
[67] This coincided with a near 30% decrease in traffic metrics for the Drudge website in the last months of 2019—from a 90 day-ago ranking of #637 in global internet engagement as of July to #844 in December.
[71][72] Democratic Party strategist Chris Lehane also said in 2006 "phones start ringing" whenever Drudge breaks a story, and Mark McKinnon, a former media advisor to George W. Bush, said that he checked the site 30–40 times per day.
The New York Times said, "Within minutes, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's fund-raising success was injected via Drudge into the day's political news on the Internet and cable television.
"[84] During the 2004 US presidential campaign, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group made claims about John Kerry's war record, which were mentioned by Drudge and investigated by major newspapers and TV networks.
[71] The book Unfit for Command: Swiftboat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry became a best-seller in part due to its promotion in the Drudge Report.
Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, professional head of the British Army, said: "I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us".
"[95][96][97] The Individual Rights Foundation, led by conservative activist David Horowitz, paid Drudge's legal fees in the Blumenthal lawsuit.
[100] After a paternity test using a sample of Clinton's DNA found on the dress belonging to Monica Lewinsky, a Star source told Time magazine that "there was no match, not even close.
The story was reported without a link but as "developing", with the headline "Shock: McCain Volunteer Attacked and Mutilated in Pittsburgh – 'B' carved into 20 yr old Woman's Face.
"[109] The story set off a "storm of media attention"[107] and was repeated by some conservative bloggers and radio talk-show hosts, all citing the Drudge Report as their source.
[110] The story was confirmed to be a hoax perpetrated by Todd and, according to Talking Points Memo, spread to reporters by McCain's Pennsylvania communications director.
[112] On August 8, 2016, the Drudge Report displayed a photo depicting two men helping Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton ascend a set of stairs during a campaign stop in South Carolina on February 27, 2016.
[116] On December 30, 2016, an article listed on the Drudge Report accused the United States federal government of attempting to bring down its website with a denial-of-service attack.
Cybersecurity analysts speculated that the attack was on the scale of the 2016 Dyn cyberattack and suggested that only a small number of groups would have the ability to take down a highly trafficked site for extended lengths of time.
[123] The story was rebutted by the Sonoma County's sheriff department, which stated, "This is completely false, bad, wrong information that Breitbart started and is being put out into the public.
"[123] In June 2018, the Drudge Report displayed a headline and photo pairing that some perceived as a suggestion that migrant children who had been separated from their parents were violent criminals.