Media admit: We stink compared to Drudge

Media admit: We stink compared to Drudge
National press scorched for inability to emulate influence, report truth

Talk about being late to the party.

The national news media are apparently just now stumbling upon the “big scoop” the rest of the world already knows: Matt Drudge is the “single most influential person in the American media.” And they’re none too happy about it.

“Network anchors come and go, but Drudge remains, the omnipresent force who is required reading for political editors, television producers and campaign managers from all parties. Somewhere in the hereafter, the likes of William Randolph Hearst are looking toward Drudge on Earth with envy and asking: Why didn’t I ever get that big? If anyone believes there is any individual more powerful in media than Drudge, be my guest and name your choice,” declared Brent Budowski, an aide to the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, and now a columnist for The Hill.

Rush Limbaugh read from Budowski’s column on his radio show Friday and then blasted the “failing mainstream media” for “wringing its hands” over the “power” Drudge yields, “whining that he has no competitors.”

Limbaugh argued Drudge simply has a knack for news, and his competitors, like the New York Times and Washington Post, are wedded to an ideology that prevents them from emulating his successful business model.

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“The fact that Drudge has no competitors is what stands out to me. This guy admits it. There are no competitors. The New York Times ought to be the Drudge page! The newspaper of record? The greatest newspaper in the world? If it were being run by true news people, the New York Times would be what the Drudge page is. If you want to know what’s happening wherever and things that matter and are important, you go there. That’s the reputation all these news organizations want, isn’t it?” exclaimed Limbaugh.

Limbaugh said the media are simply admitting they don’t know how to appeal to the masses.

“I mean, they are hemorrhaging ad dollars. They are hemorrhaging audience, both broadcast and print. CNN doesn’t have an audience. MSNBC doesn’t have an audience and hasn’t had in a long time. Time magazine and the New York Times are hemorrhaging advertisers. The number of pages in both publications is declining. What does it say that millions of Americans only have one place to go to find things they really want to know?”

Limbaugh points to the attacks on Fox News as another example of the appeal of “alternative” sources of news. He says the “arrogance and conceit” of the media prevent them from recognizing why audiences are shrinking.

“Fox News runs rings around all other broadcast news organizations, and rather than learn from it and try to emulate it – at least the parts they can – and grow their own businesses, they sit there and shrink and shrink and shrink and impugn the honor and integrity of the competitors that are cleaning their clocks! I mean, it’s patently obvious that if you scour the Internet and you want the latest and the greatest and the most poignant, the most timely, the latest on anything happening, you don’t go to the New York Times page.

“You don’t go to the L.A. Times page. You don’t go to USA Today. You don’t go to the CNN page. You don’t go to the MSNBC page. You go to the Drudge page. That’s what everybody knows. And I don’t think it would be that hard to emulate for them, except they structurally and systematically cannot. Because they could not divorce themselves from their agenda long enough to even get close to accomplishing what Drudge does.”

As WND reported, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission who previously opposed the so-called “net neutrality” regulations adopted by bureaucrats recently – and already under court challenge like so many previous related rules – says he foresees a future where rule-makers will want to regulate websites like the Drudge Report and WND.com.

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“I could easily see this migrating over to the direction of content. … What you’re seeing now is an impulse not just to regulate the roads over which traffic goes, but the traffic itself,” Ajit Pai warned. “It is conceivable to me to see the government saying, ‘We think the Drudge Report is having a disproportionate effect on our political discourse. He doesn’t have to file anything with the FEC. The FCC doesn’t have the ability to regulate anything he says, and we want to start tamping down on websites like that.’”

Limbaugh suggested the sudden media fixation on Drudge is no “coincidence” and that it may be “timed” to coincide with the warning about federal regulations aimed at Drudge.

“And ‘net neutrality,’ make no mistake, I don’t care what you think you know about it, I don’t care if you’ve bought into this mirage that ‘net neutrality’ is making sure that everybody’s got equal access to websites at the same speed and bandwidth and all that, let me tell you what it really is. ‘Net neutrality’ ultimately is empowering the federal government to go after websites based on content.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/media-admit-we-stink-compared-to-drudge/#VwhpW8ZWs5hhk8Zp.99