The Los Angeles Times says the Drudge Report plays a tremendous effect in propping up news websites and setting agendas, just like the The New York Times does.
Indeed. Drudge is required reading for me every day. Not only does he have the big stories, he has the "talker" stories that might make it into my newscast at KOLD. And let me be honest, The Lightning Round takes major cues from Drudge links.
But what I miss is Matt Drudge's original reports, those splashy scoops he used to send out in the 1990's, when he started out on America Online, before the Lewinsky scandal. Drudge isn't a citizen journalist anymore; he's a citizen aggregator. Other sites and blogs trying to copy his success have sprung up to do what he did, and now all he has to do is link to it, along with doing his Sunday night radio talk show. The Times article implies he's making boffo bucks.
Thinking about it, he does what I do every day. He pulls stories from other sources onto his site. I pull stories from KOLD reporters, AP, CBS, and CNN into my newscast. He runs his operation on the web. I do it on TV. I never thought of myself as a news aggregator, but it sure looks like I am.
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