The Drudge Report is a conservative, U.S.-based news aggregation website run by Matthew Nathan Drudge. The site consists mainly of links to stories from the US and international mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to many columnists. Occasionally Drudge authors news stories himself based on tip-offs. The Report originated around 1994 as a weekly subscriber-based email dispatch. It is most famous for being the first news source to break the Monica Lewinsky scandal to the public after Newsweek decided not to publish the story.

Origins

Drudge started as a "a gossip column focusing on gossip from Hollywood and Washington, D.C.". He began publishing his email-based Report from an apartment in Hollywood, California, using his connections with industry and media insiders to break stories sometimes before they hit the mainstream media. He now maintains the website from his home in Miami Beach, Florida, with help from Andrew Breitbart, who assists in story selection and headline writing. Breitbart, who describes himself as "Matt Drudge's bitch", works the afternoon shift at the Drudge Report, as well as running his own website (breitbart.com) and another website providing a conservative support system for people in the Los Angeles entertainment industry.

Drudge, who began his website in 1997 as a supplement to his email newsletter, first received national attention in 1996 when he broke the news that Jack Kemp would be Republican Bob Dole's running mate in the 1996 presidential election. In 1998, Drudge again made national waves when he broke the news that Newsweek magazine had information on an inappropriate relationship between "a White House intern" and President Bill Clinton (the Monica Lewinsky scandal), but was withholding publication. After Drudge's report, Newsweek published the story.

Content

The Drudge Report site consists mainly of selected hyperlinks to news websites all over the world. These linked stories are almost always hosted on the external websites of mainstream media outlets. The rest of the site contains links to media outlets and a number of columnists. The site sometimes includes stories written by Drudge himself — usually two to three paragraphs in length. These stories generally first publish a rumor concerning a story that is about to be published in a major magazine or newspaper. Drudge also occasionally publishes Nielsen, Arbitron, or BookScan ratings, internal email messages, or early election exit polls that are otherwise not made available to the public.