Drudge Report: Enemies on All Sides

In 1998, the Drudge Report broke the story of the Monica Lewinski Scandal. Almost immediately, the Drudge Report went from a political insider site to a go-to source for Right-Leaning News.

When I started Beacon of Speech in 2016, we were intrigued by the Drudge Report's business model. Many on the Left were either trying to ban the site or wanted to charge them for sharing links. But I couldn't understand how you could ban a site that was nothing but links. As a free speech site, we had nothing but love for the Drudge Report.

But say you're CNBC, if the Drudge Report shares one of your stories, does the number of hits go up:

Two-fold?

Five-fold?

Ten-fold?

Why wouldn't you want more eyeballs to your website? The optics seemed to be that left-wing news agencies simply did not appreciate being treated as equals to right-wing agencies on the Drudge platform.

In 2018, we made the analogy of Facebook News being the Left-Wing Version of the Drudge Report: Facebook News vs The Drudge Report

Editor's Note: Facebook News is loooong gone.

Back in 2021, we noticed that the Drudge Report was dropping links that had been on the site for decades: The Drudge Report is Quietly Nudging Toward the Middle

After the Capitol Riot, the Drudge Report dropped Conservative Voices that supported the storming of the Capitol: Drudge Repercussions

On Election Night in 2024, the Drudge Report dropped the controversial Zero Hedge from their site: Did Antifa Get Zero Hedge Kicked Off of the Drudge Report?

None of those changes happened in a vacuum. Any changes at the Drudge Report weren't announced, they were observed, and then speculated upon.

With that being said, the attacks on the Drudge Report make you realize that the news is a real cutthroat business.

• Whatfinger: A Conservative Aggregator that reminds visitors that the Drudge Report has moved too far to the Left.

• Drudge Retort: A Liberal Aggregator that proclaims that the Drudge Report is way too far to the Right.

• WH Wire: A Populist Aggregator which laments how mean Matt Drudge is to Donald Trump. During Trump's first administration, the Drudge Report had mostly, (but not universally), favorable Trump Stories. Trump's second administration? Uh, not so much. The WH Wire is mostly for hardcore MAGAs.

• Beacon of Speech: A Poor-Man's Libertarian Aggregator. In theory, we're not really an aggregator, we just pick out 8 stories that we would talk about on our weekend webcast. But, unfortunately, the webcast is on hiatus.

I say it all the time at work, you have to have allies somewhere, it's hard to make a go of it alone.

Why do I need allies at work?

You know what....Article Over.

Editor's Note II: Full disclosure, Whatfinger has been kind enough to pick up some of our articles in the past.