Capture the flag

Drudge Report claims a victory in the war over health care reform. White House says not so fast (sorta).

Tucker's immodest proposal

Conservative pundit and bow tie aficionado Tucker Carlson plans to launch a right-leaning website, called TheDailyCaller.com, to cover the policy decisions of the Obama administration. Carlson wants to combine the advocacy-approach of Huffington Post with the pay-per-click model of Gawker to create a site that simultaneously drives the news, beats Drudge Report to the punch and upholds basic journalism standards.

From The Hill:

"We are a general-interest newspaper-format style site," Carlson told conservative bloggers at the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday. "There just aren't enough people covering this administration and telling the people what's going on." ...

Carlson said that the site's reporters would share in the profits based on how much traffic is drawn in by their work. He said the site would seek to "drive" the news, similar to the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post, the New York Times, and other major news outlets. (The site's motto, Carlson said, is "every seven minutes," and seeks to be "even faster than Drudge.")

"B" is for bullshit

If you read the Drudge Report, you saw this face posted prominently on the site - a young Texas woman and McCain volunteer allegedly the victim of an ATM robbery-turned-political assault with a backwards "B" scratched into her cheek. "B" for Barack, it's to be assumed.

The McCain camp released a statement after the initial report: "We're shaken by this. It's disgusting."

Maybe it was the fact that the "B" was backwards, or the idea that a knife-wielding robber would take the time to make such a crude political statement, but the story sounded made up to me. And it was. She's now confessed to cops.

Drudge, to his credit, linked to the story about the confession.

(h/t TPM)

In Drudge we trust

In his latest blog post, Alan Mutter declares that "Drudge shows how to do news."

Matt Drudge, of course, has the luxury of employing the entire English-speaking media for free; he doesn't have to spend time or money checking the accuracy of their work, nor does he have to take responsibility for their mistakes. He doesn't have to make difficult judgments on deadline about sensitive issues, or plan coherent coverage for major events. He doesn't have to send anyone into dangerous territory for story, go to court to protect a confidential source, or sit patiently all day waiting for just the right shot.

None of this to say Drudge Report isn't an interesting and valuable website. It is. However, it's silly to argue that Drudge stands as a model that other news organizations should - or even could - emulate.

Here's what Mutter says:

But with all due respect to the penetrating stories, elegant writing and dazzling multimedia presentations the mainstream media create, they can’t get the hang of delivering breaking news when their readers/viewers – and potential reader/viewers – most crave instant enlightenment.

By effectively conceding this opportunity to sites like Drudge, the mainstream media forfeit in significant measure their value and credibility, which, in turn, will constrain future audience growth and revenue prospects.

When are they going to learn how to compete?

I don't know what he means in saying the mainstream media is "conceding" an opportunity. Does he mean the Washington Post and CNN and the Pasadena Star-News should cherry pick stories from across the Internet and publish them on their websites?

The chief concession mainstream media (and alternative media) is forced to make is hiring a staff - there's nothing to post unless someone reports it. Staff requires salaries and salaries require revenues and that often leads news organizations to take a proprietary interest in their reporters' work. At the same time, the best media seek to boost their value and credibility in the marketplace by exhibiting good judgment, consistent standards and strong editing.

I know Mutter's argument centers on Drudge Report's presentation of breaking news. Still, whatever Drudge's talents in putting together his Web page, he needs to mine the entire media landscape to fill it. He can pick the best headlines from 30 different papers. When news breaks, he doesn't have to worry that his economics reporter is sick or his political writer is suffering from writers' block or his stable of reporters too small to get every angle (or is busy trying to get video for the paper's blog). Even with multi-layered media partnerships, I'm not sure that any one organization can match Drudge's palette.

How do you compete with free?

Getting freaky*

The boys at Politico credit SNL and a deft Howard Wolfson for throwing Barack Obama under the media bus in the days leading up to today's Ohio and Texas primaries. But Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com has a different theory, and urges Politico Editor John Harris to go back to the book he wrote about how to win the White House in 2008, titled, creatively enough, "The Way to Win".

Here's the relevant passage from Greenwald's post: The reality is that the Clinton campaign has been complaining bitterly for months and months that the media has not subjected Obama to any real critical scrutiny. For the most part, that fell on deaf ears. The only thing that has changed over the past couple of weeks is that the right-wing noise machine, which now sees Obama as the likely Democratic nominee, began complaining just as bitterly that the media is "in the tank" for Obama. That is what moves them. As Harris himself wrote in his own book, it is Drudge -- not Howard Wolfson or SNL -- who rules their world.

*Speaking of freaky, Clinton must hate Anne Kornblut.