New book on Matt Drudge shines spotlight on reclusive blogger

Joseph Curl

Matt Drudge is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Mr. Drudge, 53, has been painting his version of the world for more than 20 years, cherry-picking stories from various news agencies and posting the links on his website, the Drudge Report. But almost no one knows anything about him, so secretive is he. That’s all about to change with the release of a new book, “The Drudge Revolution,” by journalist Matthew Lysiak. (For the record, the subtitle of the book, which hits book store shelves July 28, is: “The Untold Story Of How Talk Radio, Fox News, And A Gift Shop Clerk With An Internet Connection Took Down The Mainstream Media”). “Matt Drudge’s impact on the past three decades of presidential campaigns has been well chronicled, no more so than the 2016 election in which many credited Drudge for having propelled Donald Trump through the primaries and into the White House,” Mr. Lysiak tells me. “But now that the reclusive blogger has weaponized his powerful site against the president, what effect will it have over the millions of loyal Drudge Report readers who also make up the president’s base?” he asks. And Mr. Drudge has done just that — “weaponized” his site. The reclusive blogger has targeted President Trump of late, posting many stories from liberal sites (which hitherto got little play on his site). No one knows why. But even Mr. Trump has weighed in on the change: “I gave up on Drudge (a really nice guy) long ago, as have many others. People are dropping off like flies!” the president tweeted in April. I know a thing or two about Mr. Drudge: I’ve known Matt (whom I call “Doc” because of his initials, MD) for more than 20 years and I ran the Drudge Report in the mornings for nearly four years. But even I hardly know the guy: I rarely saw him, and we talked on the phone only a few times a year (usually for hours, but not often). So as a longtime fan of Mr. Drudge and his site, I read Mr. Lysiak’s new book with interest. The former investigative reporter with the New York Daily News conducted some 200 interviews and offers some insights into Drudge, including...MORE