Last week I printed the column Exactly Half the Story. Toward the end of the story, I postulated that the Drudge Report was quietly nudging toward the middle to set itself up as the centrist news choice for the next generation. As right-wing websites pop up every other day, and left-wing websites like CNN try to prove that they're farther left than their competitors, I simply observed that the Drudge Report was the only news agency actively moving to the center.
As left-wing websites fight for a decreasing advertising dollar, and right-wing websites fight for a decreasing advertising dollar, I believe that centrist websites will become more alluring for the corporate dollar. To me, it seems like a sound business decision to move to a less plodded upon area of news turf in an industry that's becoming more and more saturated.
Now I didn't have any hard evidence, I simply gave my opinion. But.....
Over the weekend, I saw that Buck Sexton and Clay Travis were taking over the lucrative Noon - 3 p.m. weekday time slot for the dearly departed Rush Limbaugh. I wondered aloud what RushLimbaugh.com thought of the news, so I went to click on the Rush Limbaugh link at the Drudge Report.
That link is gone. Because I first learned of the Drudge Report from Rush Limbaugh, I assumed that the Rush Link would stay on Drudge in perpetuity. I guess I was wrong. Then I noticed the David Limbaugh Link was also gone. Hmmm.
So I went into the Drudge Archives, back one year, and took a screen shot. Not only are both Limbaugh Links taken down, but also links to other right-wingers such as NewsBusters, Fred Barnes, Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Alex Jones, Hugh Hewitt, and the Free Republic.
I tried to google: Is Drudge dropping links? Because maybe someone else has done this story and I just missed it.
Nope. The stories are about how left-wing media were gleefully reporting about the Drudge Report losing traffic. Listen, I don't know Matt Drudge at all. I count his aggregator site as one of the first places I go to to consume news. At some point, around 2018 or 2019, Matt Drudge realized that Donald Trump stood for nothing but Donald Trump.
Matt Drudge stands for America, or "the Truth," or 1st Amendment Rights. Something guides Matt Drudge's hand. He doesn't have to tell me, he doesn't have to tell you, but there is a philosophy, or backbone, to the site. The Drudge Report is becoming bigger than Matt Drudge.
And that shift is being under reported.
C'mon, you want to put Beacon of Speech right between Peter Bart and Paul Bedard.