Drudge Won't Budge

Just last week I wrote about the tendency of partisan Web sites like The Drudge Report and The Huffington Post to project importance onto stories likely not deserving of the attention. Since then, The Drudge Report embarassed itself (as did many other media outlets, as Rick Sanchez noted) by pushing the Ashley Todd attack story despite the fact that it was fabricated. Oops. Here's a snapshot of the prominence it gave the story.

Of course, the fact remains that Drudge will continue to attract a loyal audience regardless of his journalistic missteps. Still, his traffic has decreased somewhat recently (while The Post's has risen), and getting things wrong isn't going to help that.

Also notable was the way Drudge delivered the Jennifer Hudson story, to follow up on my comparison of celebrity news coverage. Sure, the murder of Hudson's mother and brother got prime position (as seen here), but so too did a news story about Chicago being the murder capital of the country. Would that story have gotten such prominent placement if the Democratic candidate for president wasn't from Chicago?