Is Drudge Becoming Irrelevant?

Now The Drudge Report seems not only slightly outlandish, but also outmoded; the equivalent of depending on the morning paper for the latest news.
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I have been addicted to "The Drudge Report" since at least January, 1998 when he seemed to lead the coverage of Bill Clinton's sordid tryst with Monica Lewinsky--probably before that, too; I can't remember when I didn't visit the sight multiple times a day to check what's new.

Increasingly, I've been going elsewhere for my latest news fix. I get multiple email alerts on breaking news from various news web sites--the Washington Post, for example.

As I await Obama's VP decision, I keep thinking I better click on Drudge and then I remember that I signed up on Obama's website to get the news immediately via email. I still visit Drudge regularly, but I learn more from going to CNN's site or MSNBC's.

Also, increasingly, Drudge seems filled with links to the bizarre and supernatural and shocking, making it feel sometimes like the online equivalent of reading the tabloid headlines while waiting at the supermarket checkout.

I checked Drudge just now and found the big headline on the VP pick, Waiting for the Mate!, links to stories on the Russia's bad behavior in Georgia, news from Kabul, news on Iran and its nuclear plants, but then also, all there at once on Drudge's page:

Puerto Rico corpse kept upright for 3-day wake (with photo)
Condom ringtone launched in India
Nurse published surgery pictures on FACEBOOK
SCORCHED: Japan reports 2 iPod fires, suspects defect...
Mugger Attacks 85-Year-Old Woman; Steals Cane...
SHOCK VIDEO...
Uproar as star diagnosed with cancer live on reality TV...
Yoda: The cat with FOUR ears...(with photo)

That and Drudge's obsession with weather-related stories--Tropical Storm Fay soaks southwest Forida; ADVISORY....WARNING CONE...RADAR....SATELLITE--that don't particularly interest me.

Drudge, with his fedora and baggy suits and Walter Winchell manner always had a 1940s look to him. But his site always seemed, if not cutting edge, at least a place where people who were up to date went. Now "The Drudge Report" seems not only slightly outlandish, but also outmoded; the equivalent of depending on the morning paper for the latest news.

A lifelong insomniac and an almost lifelong news junkie, I used to hear the newspapers landing at the doorstep. It was still dark outside when I would jump out of bed, eager for the headlines on the four papers that I still have delivered every morning. On particularly restless nights I would read them through, hours before anyone in my family was awake. I no longer am tempted to do that because most of the news in the morning paper I already know before I go to sleep. Lately, when I click on Drudge, I have that same feeling.

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