Drudge is known for linking to stories on his site and his occasional original reporting. However, his reporting is not always true.
A good way for a blog to gain popularity is to break news, whether it be true or false, but it's better if there were some facts in the story. Being a blogger and coming across breaking news or something controversial is like hitting a gold mine. Bloggers are able to publish exclusive news at any time of the day keeping them one step ahead of broadcast news. However because these posts may be rushed, facts might not always turn out to be true and once it's published on the web, it's there for good.
The Internet works the same way that television does, if it's online people will believe it to be factual, even if it's outlandish.
Drudge has published these exclusives before, the majority which turn out to be fabricated and yet time and time again people still believe Drudge.
In 1999, Drudge claimed to have a "world exclusive" about a woman who said Bill Clinton was the father of her child. Right off the bat, anyone with half a brain should have questioned this so-called confession. This was the first time anyone was hearing about this woman, so how could the video be a confession? Also where was this video that Drudge apparently viewed? If you missed the confession part and continued reading, you would see that his source was Star Magazine, a publication which says they are the "No. 1 for Celebrity News" (though it is more gossip than actually news).
Nonetheless, throughout the whole post, Drudge never once cited another website or publication that had the information he had or anything else relevant to this crazy claim.
This hasn't been the only time Drudge fabricated stories either. ThinkProgress recently put together a list of ten stories about Obama that Drudge made up. What motivates Drudge to create these false claims? Does he feel threatened by other bloggers that by breaking these stories, he hopes to gain more readers?
The bottom line is if and when you break news on your blog, cite other reputable sources and link back to other stories that may be relevant and help to back your claim. Being credible and factual should be more important than obtaining a couple more hits on your site for an hour or two.
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