Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other Matthew Nathan Drudge (born October 27, 1966) is an American journalist and the creator/editor of the Drudge Report, an American news aggregator.
Drudge first received national attention in 1996 when he broke the news that Jack Kemp would be Republican Bob Dole's running mate in the 1996 presidential election.
[9][10][11] A story by Business 2.0 magazine from April 2003 estimated that Drudge's website received $3,500 a day (almost $1.3 million a year) in advertising revenues.
[12] An article in The Miami Herald from September 2003 said that Drudge estimated he earns $1.2 million a year from his website and radio show.
[1][7] In updating the site, he reportedly monitors multiple television news channels and a number of websites on several computers in his home office.
Drudge had refused to go on air, charging Fox News with censorship when the network prevented him from showing photos of surgery on Samuel Armas.
Drudge gained notice in the early 2000s by becoming a frequent reference for news material on Limbaugh's, Sean Hannity's, and Mark Levin's radio shows.
The Drudge Revolution: The Inside Story of How Talk Radio, Fox News, and a Gift Shop Clerk with an Internet Connection Took Down the Mainstream Media was published on July 28, 2020.
The book's author, Matthew Lysiak, interviewed over 200 former friends and associates, including former Drudge Report editor Joseph Curl.
[17][18] The book features a transcript of a Q&A session conducted at the National Press Club on June 2, 1998, which lays out Drudge's raison d'être.
Mediaite stated, “Drudge will remain a dominant player – and potentially painful thorn in Trump’s side – for the next four years.
[citation needed] In their 2006 book The Way to Win, Mark Halperin and John Harris report that Republican National Convention chairman Ken Mehlman "kind of brags" (as then-CNN host Howard Kurtz put it) about utilizing the Drudge channel.
[22] They also wrote that "Drudge, with his droll Dickensian name, was not the only media or political agent whose actions led to John Kerry's defeat.
[29] In every state and nearly every civilized nation in the developed world, readers know where to go for action and reaction of news – at least one day ahead... Free from any corporate concerns, there are simply too many to thank since the site's inception in 1994.
"[34] Drudge has been called "the Walter Cronkite of his era" by Mark Halperin and John F. Harris,[23] and "the country's reigning mischief-maker" by Todd Purdum of The New York Times.
"[36] Camille Paglia called Drudge "the kind of bold, entrepreneurial, free-wheeling, information-oriented outsider we need far more of in this country.
"[37] David McClintick described him as "a modern Tom Paine, a possible precursor to millions of town criers using the Internet to invade the turf of bigfoot journalists.