July 13, 2008

McCain: "Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously, everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge."

Incredible how important Drudge has become. That's from an interview by Adam Nagourney and Michael Cooper. (Here's the article on the interview, with audio clips in the sidebar.)
Q: What websites if any do you look at regularly?

Mr. McCain: Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously, everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics, sometimes.
He must mean Real Clear Politics.

On blogs:
... I understand the impact of blogs on American politics today and political campaigns. I understand that. And I understand that something appears on one blog, can ricochet all around and get into the evening news, the front page of The New York Times. So, I do pay attention to the blogs. And I am not in any way unappreciative of the impact that they have on entire campaigns and world opinion.

Q: You read newspapers then.
That's almost wistful, isn't it? Newspapers get a mention and the NYT reporter pipes up with "You read newspapers then."
Mr. McCain: I read them most all every day.

Q: You and Obama are both newspaper and book readers. Do you read them in the old paper version or do you read them online?
"The old paper version" — it almost sounds as though the reporters themselves are letting go of the newspaper newspaper.
Mr. McCain: I love to read them in the print form, and the reason why I do is because so much, the prominence of the story matters. If I read a story and say, Oh my God, did you see this? But it’s back on A26, it doesn’t have the impact of what are still – even though it’s declining – what are still, what are hundreds of millions of American picking up an looking at today....
I'm picturing Richard Nixon taking comfort in the New York Times publishing the story of the Watergate break-in on — what was it? — page 19?

Anyway, these days, that story on A26 will be moved to the front by Drudge — which all you newspaper reporters are checking too — and, Drudge or no Drudge, blogger swill bloggers will see any story the newspapers try to downplay, and if it's good, we'll churn it up until the newspapers have to write a story about how all the bloggers are writing about it.

Are "hundreds of millions of Americans" are picking up the newspaper newspaper? The NYT circulation is around one million. USA Today and the Wall Street Journal each have about 2 million. How many Americans get a newspaper? I don't know, but "everybody watches... Drudge."

"Watches"... is that why we love the web? We watch it, like TV.

Watch Matt himself say what his standard the Drudge Report is: "To be completely live, almost as if you're animated, with text":



Hey, Drudge is a strange guy, isn't it? It's hardly surprising that he rarely goes on TV. Yet this oddball leads the way for us, which makes us all pretty strange, don't you think? It must drive Nagourney and Cooper mad.

IN THE COMMENTS: 1jpb writes: "Does [McCain] know that religious conservatives (and non-conservatives) will quickly notice, and object to, his use of the word God?" Good question. I know it's very common among many Americans to blurt out "oh my God" carelessly and for almost no reason at all, but there are also many of us who think it is quite wrong. I, personally, think it's worse than blurting out "fuck" and I don't understand why anyone who has any respect for the 10 Commandments doesn't agree with me. If you're not in a situation where you can spice up your loose talk with "fuck," please don't say "oh my God."

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

blogger swill

Best. Typo. Ever.

Ann Althouse said...

LOL. Preserved... and corrected.

Meade said...

"Hey, Drudge is a strange guy, isn't it? It's hardly surprising that he rarely goes on TV. Yet this oddball leads the way for us, which makes us all pretty strange, don't you think?"

Blog-altered neural networks

ricpic said...

Judging by McCain's mangled sentences it's going to be Eisenhower redux should he be elected.

1775OGG said...

Drudge got it right, IMHO, about many aspects of the today's media. Yep, we've got to select which outlooks we'll trust and which we won't. Time changes everything, especially news sources; "Uncle Valter" is gone forever!

BTW: intentional mistakes are the best kind! LOLF!

Guesst said...

Who's that man in the suit/tie?

Where's the hat? The casual shirt and jeans?

My God. He's become Drudgebiz in his old age.

Guesst said...

btw: Lest we forget, Drudge started out as an Art Bell wannabe, and was handed his celebrity by Lucianne, who used him to betray her friend Linda Tripp.

Swifty Quick said...

btw: Lest we forget, Drudge started out as an Art Bell wannabe, and was handed his celebrity by Lucianne, who used him to betray her friend Linda Tripp.

Talk about mangled.

erictrimmer said...

He's awfully squirmy.

Made me think Parkinson's or Asperger's or Amphetamines...

But maybe it's just nerves.

chuck b. said...

I look at Drudge several times a day but I can't say that it affects me much. It's mostly habit. I might only read one or two stories before moving on to something else. I never click any of the opinion-writer links at the bottom. Who are any of those people and why would I give a fuck about any of 'em?

No doubt the pared down format is very powerful. But what else is it about Drudge...Does the eye love scanning those three columns--looking for a pattern? Does Drudge "bury" a story by moving it down the page? That's not really the same effect as burying it in a newspaper.

I used to scan through the whole print newspaper, making sure nothing escaped my notice. But online I rarely make it past the front page. Newspaper web-pages are very cluttered and hard to look at--not just with ads, but different lines, fonts, colors, small pictures.... blech.

Even still, I think the overall quality of my news intake is much better now because I'm not limited to the one print paper in front of me.

vbspurs said...

Hey, Drudge is a strange guy, isn't it? It's hardly surprising that he rarely goes on TV.

Indeed. I echo Eric's Asperger's allusion. Small wonder Drudge rarely appears on television -- blogging releases people to transform themselves, to be more poised and assured on print.

A lot of the famous bloggers today came from a profession where they were comfortable being "on show" (law professors being one of them). Others like Malkin, Hewitt, even Wonkette made the leap, gracefully.

But a lot of them are best left behind a computer.

Kos must be one of these awkward types, because I've never seen him even in a Charlie Rose cameo (unlike Glenn).

Cheers,
Victoria

chuck b. said...

He's always telling people he's on the radio tho'. He wants an audience. Ever listen to him? His radio program is not very influential. So I kind of doubt his televisual presentation would be that strong. He's got his Internet thing.

Minicapt said...

Victoria
Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvkQEqeTFlI

Cheers

Cedarford said...

I'm picturing Richard Nixon taking comfort in the New York Times publishing the story of the Watergate break-in on — what was it? — page 19?

Just like they put the Abu Ghraib story way back until they realized they could run 80 front page articles and inflict some serious damage to Republicans, the Iraq war effort and safety of troops - and thus advance the Sultzberger Family's progressive causes.

vbspurs said...

Minicapt, that's awesome! LOL.

And yes, that's the one time I've ever seen Markos "live".

There's no excuse for him not being out there more often. If slightly creepy geeks like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos can do it, he should too.

Sprezzatura said...

I'm a fan of the family. I also like his father's project (refdesk.)

Regarding McCain; does he even know that religious conservatives (and non-conservatives) will quickly notice, and object to, his use of the word God?

Ms. Lydia Fink said...

I can't even imagine being a popular Blogger, and then not being able to get a link on Drudge.

I'd go insane. I'd go crazy. I'd flip my Lydia !

paul a'barge said...

Just dropped in to say that I consider myself a religious Conservative and my panties don't wad up over "Oh my G-d".

Now, that PZ Myers guy? He definitely rings my outrage-bell.

Mr. Forward said...

BLOGGER SWILL LAGER
now available in
Shorts and Quarts
Always Fresh

blake said...

Wait, didn't Drudge have a half-hour show on one of the news channels for a while?

Yeah, it was on Fox ten years ago. Dunno how long it ran. He wore the hat, spoke in a clipped '40s newsie cant.

I never watched it but I flipped by a couple times. It wasn't compelling.