All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Sometimes the biggest forces at work are the unseen, invisible ones.

Take gravity, for example. Big deal. You know, apples and Isaac Newton and all that. Something that scientists and high-wire performers struggle with every day.

Then there’s the Drudge Report. Also a big deal. Not entirely unseen – it gets loads of hits – but its effect extends far beyond mere eyeballs. Media professionals and political operatives deal with it every day.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gotten a call from a TV or radio producer wanting to have me discuss a certain topic, catching me unaware, and have them say “It’s up on Drudge. Check it out.”

Then yesterday, there was an extremely fascinating take on the Drudge Effect in the New York Times indicating that the Hillary Clinton campaign was providing carefully-timed leaks to the Drudge Report team, to both gain widespread notice and divert attention from Barack Obama events.

That people in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign orbit would tip off the Drudge Report to its fund-raising numbers is in part a reflection of her pragmatic approach to dealing with potential enemies, like Newt Gingrich or Rupert Murdoch. But it also speaks to the enduring power of the Drudge Report, which mixes original reporting with links to newspaper, Internet or television reports far and wide.

The site is a potent combination of real scoops, gossip and innuendo aimed at Mr. Drudge’s targets of choice — some of it delivered with no apparent effort to determine its truth, as politicians of all stripes have discovered at times.

Aides in both parties acknowledge working harder than ever to get favorable coverage for their candidates — or unfavorable coverage of competitors — onto the Drudge Report’s home page, knowing that television producers, radio talk show hosts and newspaper reporters view it as a bulletin board for the latest news and gossip.

I think that, to most observers, the Drudge Report is a website that runs political and cultural scuttlebutt. But it very clearly doesn't end there. (Here's another great anecdote from earlier this year, from the liberally-inclined TalkingPointsMemo.) So what is the Drudge Effect? How much does it ripple throughout MediaLand, and reverberate? I am but one modest media soul, so I decided to tug the ears of some media insiders.

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"TV news reporting has always been about breaking the story down into only the barest, most salient facts, but the breakneck pace of contemporary reportage doesn't allow for that anymore," said Professor Robert Kubey, director of the Center for Media Studies at Rutgers University. "Today's ace reporter isn't the one with the best command of the language, but the one who can say 'Congress!' or 'Health care?' or 'Slam dunk!' with the most appropriate expression on his or her face."

--The Onion, in “Media Landscape Redefined by 24-second News Cycle” – a truly inspired takedown of the worst trends of cable news.

They snuck into America secretly, under our very noses. The American government was forced to act. Quicker than you could say “Lou Dobbs,” they’d become story of choice for the cable networks.

Of course, I’m talking about Delta and Dawn, who are a pair of ... humpback whales. The mother and daughter wandered through the San Francisco Bay and then 90 miles further, eventually finding themselves lost and stuck in the Port of Sacramento. Local police authorities and the United States Coast Guard spent much of the past few days trying to turn them back around to the ocean.

And the media swallowed it whole, Jonah-style. According to a Google news search search this morning, the “Wrong-Way Whales” had received 1,021 stories worth of attention, compared to the 180 stories detailing the Iraq Study Group’s newfound relevance – or the 736 stories on how two gunmen killed 7 passengers in a minibus in Baghdad.

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