Is the Drudge Report still as bad as it was?

[BarackTheVote]

Very concerned. One of my friends has started reading the Drudge Report to keep her up on the news; I remember the Drudge Report being called a Right Wing rag in the news during the Clinton scandal but haven't heard much about it since. My friend leaned liberal (big on LGBT rights, especially) but she's started dating another friend of mine who is very conservative and I've gotta think he talked her into using Drudge.

Facebook convo:
OP: I am officially hooked on the Drudge Report. How did I ever absorb the news without it?

Me: Considering they're a mouthpiece for the spin machine that stands against the LGBT community, women's health, hard-fought healthcare reforms, welfare, including aid to the disabled, racial and gender equity, corporate and diplomatic responsibility, and the social contract in general, I certainly hope you appreciate it for its Onion-like absurdity rather than anything else.

The BF:
Well speaking of "onion like absurdity" I think your opinion of the Drudgereport is well... I mean don't get me wrong you are entitled to say something is a "mouthpiece for a spin machine" I would just prefer you describe it accurately. Like "MSNBC, is a mouthpiece for the Obama administration. Matt Drudge is a mouthpiece for no one...except Matt Druge. If you prefer your new to be bought and paid for by corporate pop-up advertisers, then you can always go to Huffpo.

[shraby]

1. If you have an internet account, and access the news places at all,

you have to know what drudge is, was and always will be. Garbage.
I no longer capitalize names of things that have not earned it...republicans, ryan, romney, drudge, etc. They are similar to the tried and true rule of computers...garbage in, garbage out.

[CJCRANE]

2. You could tell her about DU...

We don't have any fixed talking points here, we link to mainstream news sources from all over the world and we analyze things from every angle.

Matt Drudge is just one guy, why get your info from one guy when you can get it from a thousand different viewpoints?

[Horse with no Name]

3. drudge is still garbage

and you shall know the zealots by their reverence for drudge.

Once they consider his garbage "news"....they become that part of the 25% of Americans who cannot be reached by reason and thought.

[reflection]

6. Whenever the RWers at work bring me an argument

I always ask "where did you hear it?" It's ALWAYS Drudge or Fox News. Always. They live in an echo chamber.

I read all kinds of stuff I don't necessarily agree with. It keeps my on my toes, and every now and then I will pick up a nugget I hadn't considered. Today's conservatives don't do that. They gotta get their fix from Drudge or Fox News and rational thought be damned.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. The main reason she should look elsewhere for news is also the main aspect of Drudge the BF

is explicitly incorrect about. The Drudge Report is not at all like MSNBC, it is not even like FoxNews, it is not a creator of news content it is an just gathers up stories from other sources and puts them in front of the reader. Matt Drudge writes nothing more than headlines, he is not even worthy of being called a mouthpiece, actually, he's just a guy who runs around telling you what he read in the tabloids, internet style. He's a promoter of the mouthpieces, he adds none of his own commentary or ideas, he just tells you what he thinks you should read, maybe adds a yellow headline or photo. Everything linked on his site is from larger corporate entities. Drudge report has historically virtually no exclusive content, no actual reporting of any story, Drudge simply links up the material from around the corporate media and piles it up so those who need to be spoon fed a point of view can simply use Matt's point of view. They can just read what he picks for them to read, this man who they don't know who makes a profit from editing the news of the day down for his slacker readers, who otherwise might have to endure seeing a story positive toward a Democrat, or hearing an opinion which is counter to their own. A mouthpiece would speak his own mind, Drudge just points people to what other people wrote which he agrees with, his own commentary is absent from the entire process. Drudge Report has no reporters. It has only second hand news, hand selected for you in order to profit Matt Drudge, who did not write a lick of it. He profits by mushing up the news and spoon feeding it to those who can not manage to digest the news on their own.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Or more simply - it's just a web portal to other news sites

where he'll add a RW-style headline and graphics top center to catch attention (along with banner ads at the very top), and will occasionally write some "breaking" news report and link to his own text page with "Blah blah blah happened. developing...." But other than that, anyone who has never frequented news and opinion sites on their own before discovering his site, would probably go gah gah and attribute something more to it than it is.

[reflection]

5. It's horrible.

I look at it every morning and I know what the fools around me are bringing to the verbal fight. It is useful, if only for that. But Drudge doesn't even try to look halfway unbiased anymore. If Romney busted out the N word in a speech while mowing down a row of half-buried puppies with a tractor and screaming phrases from the Necronomicon, Drudge would run an article talking about how much Michelle Obama's dress cost or something.

[HopeHoops]

8. It's at least as irrelevant as it has always been.

[RebelOne]

9. Yes, it is awful.

When I want to keep my blood pressure up, I read the Drudge Report.

[Populist_Prole]

10. It must be as bad as ever: My right wing father won't STFU about it

About a dozen years ago I would visit it, thinking it was merely ( as others have stated ) a portal with links to other sites. Didn't take long to see it was a right wing rag.

[BarackTheVote]

11. Here's what I'm thinking of posting in response

I want to be as factual as possible, so if you see anything too off, let me know:

There's opinion, and then there's the truth. Matt Drudge is a Republican who posts stories that reflect his own views and opinions to the exclusion of everything else. You might think you're getting a full view of the news because it passes itself off as a "news portal" but you will, in fact, be getting an extremely narrow and biased perspective. Stick with NPR and BBC.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

12. Yes, and it's actually much worse now - with a decidedly racist tinge since Obama was elected

as detailed here:
http://www.salon.com/2011/06/09/drudge_white_supremacists/

and Matt seems to love dabbling in birtherism and other conspiracy nonsense, and links to nutjob sites like Alex Jones and World Nut Daily with much more regularity these days.