Customer Reviews

Drudge Manifesto

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(35)

 

 

In a world where people are afraid to speak out against the big journalistic machine, it is refreshing to read a book that puts it all on the line. I couldn't put it down. It is an easy (but thought provoking) read. If you have halfabrain you won't want to miss this edgy manifesto co-written by Hollywood legend Julia Philips.

As anyone familiar with Matt Drudge's work might expect, this book is something of a mishmash. Drudge regales the reader with anecdotes from his reporting over the last several years, mixed in with a healthy dose of his theories of politics and the media. The result can be a little overbearing, as Drudge frequently and fondly refers to himself as one of the great journalistic pioneers of our era, but when his ego is in check, he can be extremely thoughtful (presenting, for example, an innovative approach to the responsibilities of journalism and how they have already been compromised by others). The dirt he has dug up in the course of his work is also great reading.

I literally read this book in one sitting. Had this book on order for months and it finally arrived today. I started reading it around 4PM and simply could not put it down. Dinner occurred between pages 96 and 120 and finally finished it around 8PM tonight.

This is clearly one of the greatest American stories I have ever read. A young clerk in a dead-end job, Matt started pulling Nielsen ratings out of CBS wastebaskets and posting them on the Internet. Soon, his mailing lists involved hundreds of people in the entertainment industry, many of which began giving him inside scoop on other things. Matt posted these as well and his website began to take off. Soon people from all over the country began feeding him tips. He developed some White House contacts and the rest is history.

Matt Drudge was one of the first people to realize that on the Internet, anybody could post anything and it could be seen by everybody everywhere. Matt has total editorial control of what he posts. Nobody can tell him he can't, nobody can fire him, nobody can blackball him because he doesn't belong to anything. For no matter how much the "mainstream" media try to discredit him, there will always be low-level employees at CBS, the New York Times or the Washington Post who will feed him inside information - or dish the dirt. And they HATE him for it!

I've been visiting the DRUDGE REPORT for four years now on a daily basis. It is my home page so I probably hit it at least 20-25 times a day. Yet whenever I see that blue siren flashing, I still get those same butterflies in my stomach, sort of like when they break into your favorite TV program with a SPECIAL NEWS REPORT. The amazing thing about Matt Drudge is that it could easily have been any one of us. It's just that Matt thought of it first and to his credit, he still does it best.

The book is laid out differently than your average book. As you read through it, you almost get the sense you are surfing the web and jumping from page to page. My only complaint about this book (and why I gave it four stars instead of five) is that it is just too short! At 247 pages I was left wanting more. So I logged onto his website before coming here to post this review, hoping to see the siren lit up with another breaking story. Not this time, but give him another hour.

Matt's book should be required reading for every high school political science class; but, it never will be. Terrific insight into the motivational factors behind U.S. politics and this year's election. This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the press and what it chooses to report.

Drudge is a modern-day hero, and here is his manifesto. It sparks with energy, a fast and exciting read. Be there with him and his cat as he pulls the trigger on the Lewinsky controversy. Smirk as the old media compliment him in person even as they fear and revile him in their official capacity. Cheer as he gets his own radio show and a third of a billion hits a year on his website. He comes off in the book like a wired Jack Kerouac, his road the information superhighway. As you read you'll be surprised at how many things he got right, things that people tried to refute after he published them but were ultimately proven true.

As Kenneth Fearing wrote as long ago as 1956, "Inside the electronic world, the screening and control of public messages occurs at the many checkpoints previously noted, and there is little need for the blunt intervention of archaic censorship (though no doubt it is sometimes exercised, without any audience learning, or much caring, that it has taken place). But most of the control is automatic. Instead of blue-penciling passages suspect of sinister intent it is easier to cancel the commentator or executive sub-editor who tends to be careless about the by-laws governing free speech. New and younger editors invariably function better; they have no illegal information, no haunting memories to forget." Four decades later Drudge used the internet to break the media stranglehold. He'd like Fearing's poetry and novels (for example, The Big Clock) of communications cartels and corporate conspiracies. Fearing would appreciate the little guy who busted the big combos.

The Drudge that emerges here is reminiscent of the classical Cynics: detached from his past, an exile from all political and civic communities, preferring to live alone with few possessions, yet involved in the daily affairs of the people as busybody, as meddler, asking the embarrassing questions, upsetting the status quo, invalidating the moral and social currency, acting as social pest and examiner, believing freedom of speech is the most beautiful thing in the world. He is our Diogenes, looking for an honest man with a CRT rather than a lantern. Buy the book, get a piece of history.

Matt Drudge, with 'Drudge Manifesto', has proven himself as much of a creative writer as he is a courageous reporter and inspiring internet pioneer. From detailing the days leading to the break of the Lewinsky story, to recounting his first time in the White House press gallery, to telling of his days as a youth growing up in DC, Drudge bares his soul. And he does it in darling fashion.

Untypical of his press peers, Drudge is fun to read -- without a trace of arrogance or liberal bias. He is a genuine Gen X'er, able to relate to readers under 35, who have been raised in this pop-culture era of cynicism and distrust for our institutions of government and media. Despite his cutting-edge philosophy and insight, Drudge has relied on the old-fashioned spirit of the Fourth Estate to rekindle America's appetite for news. That energy, that passion for truth, makes Drudge's book impossible to put down.

Entertaining throughout, 'Manifesto' is just that, as Drudge declares TV and traditional print journalism as "dead, dead, dead." It is just another reason Drudge is feared by the outdated, corporate-run mainstream press corps. But with this dandy of a book, Drudge has made it known to those perched in journalism's ivory towers that he and the internet are here to stay.

Let the future begin.

The book is not just a good read but a must read for all who want to know about the future of media.

Matt Drudge represents the future of media and the Internet. Whether you agree with him or not you have to respect him. He has been scooping the best journalism has offered to date.

He also influences others to follow up and expose the warts of journalists who have been scooped. Drudge is just the start of this brave new world of communications.

I just attended a seminar where a FCC advisor informed us that the media as we have come to know is gone. Soon, our computers will be like furnaces in our homes, it is there but we will seldom see it. Communications will change in the next 5 years faster than the last 10 years.

People will be having implanted devices in their ears being able to communicate and being informed in seconds. The time from events to print will be gone, live TV to reporting in an instant, and analysis will subject the reporter to critical review.

Places where media power are used will have to contend with plebeians finding and reporting news faster and in details many of us will want to avoid, but few will.

Giants like the New York Time, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal will remain giants just like the Dinosaurs who at one time usually ignored the small mammals existing under the leafs and their feet.

However, as the environment changed, the small mammals adjusted to the changes only the Dinosaurs disappeared. Such changes are here in journalism, communications and the private lives of everyone. Nevertheless, if you think you can kill a giant, you better not miss. But in this case, the giants just may cause their own demise if they do not adapt.

The days of a Hearst causing a war, Luce making a hero, and Graham targeting a president are over. Any of that kind of journalism will comeback on them. Drudge does exactly this in the book on and about all and any current scions of critics who can't compete with him.

Journalists themselves will no longer be a patrician club drinking at the National Press Club deciding what stories will be covered and buried.

They themselves will be the new targets of the Internet Plebeians who will not dance when called upon. The new Matt Drudges will just report what patrician journalists are sitting on as they drink. Counter reports on what they have reported that in the end subjecting their work to public ridicule should a mistake be made, a fact left out or personal bias being rearranged!

Matt Drudge is no enemy of the freedom of press. He is the grassroots response to it! I deeply respect the media but like everyone else, I get angry when I see obvious bias, misinformed facts and hidden agendas.

The book exposes this brave new world. It opens more doors than we will want to learn or know, and his Manifesto is the opening salvo. He is already welcomed into the media community not because he is invited, but because he made his own.

More Matt Drudges are on the way, and those who think otherwise are already obsolete and won't survive them. Drudge is making new ways to dream in the media for anyone with a story.

What is so appealing is you can view all views by and from him. Left wing magazines mixed with Right wing journals, newspapers of all kind existing at one place, media outlets being caught in the cross fire of liquid speed reporting. Hesitate and the scoop is lost, sit on it and you look manipulative, bury it you look dishonest and lose your reputation.

The journalists and media moguls are targets of their own work being held in suspect, reviewed with facts missing and their character debated, making life never the same.

Sleep over at the White House, kill a story, contribute a dollar, it is revealed by a guard, secretary or courier. The lost of reputation, creditability and even liberty can be done in an instant now. Worse yet, such losses can come from what you do and not do!

So those who condemn Drudge will come to understand, that if it wasn't Drudge, it would be someone else.

In any event, Matt Drudge has impacted upon all of us more than we already know, and after reading this book you will know why?

I highly recommend this book to learn about today and the future, We can not change or control it, we can only adapt to it!

Not since SpinCycle has a more honest viewpoint on politics and media been given and with punch to boot. His number one source of credibility is the vengence which bias and corrupt critics attack him. What are they so afraid of that they can't deal with him in a open minded and professional way? I found out what they were afraid of in the Manifesto. (The web page is not working correctly, I am 22 years old.

Absolutely fabulous.

Small minds quibble that there are times when Drudge rushes stuff into print - but let's look at the bigger picture: he breaks stories that other media hide because it's inconvenient to their heroes.

And I like that he makes the effort to report as it is - if it just a breaking report, that's all it is - not a fact yet. There's a lot of small minds who put Drudge to a far greater standard of 100% accuracy than they do to the NYT, WP, LAT, or even our beloved leader with his wagging finger.

Reviewed by Brent Barksdale, Sr. Editor PoliticalUSA.com

The media elite claim to abhor him, the White House claims to ignore him, but they all read him....every day. They can't help it.

The same goes for Matt Drudge's new book, The Drudge Manifesto. They will buy it and they all will read it. They can't help it. And in the book he reminds them of this fact over and over again.

From the very second you open Matt Drudge's new literary excursion it is clear that you are in his world. Part cyber talk, part rant, part poetry, and part genius.

It is even dedicated to Linda Tripp just to show the reader that Mr. Drudge doesn't believe in focus groups or Madison Avenue marketing.

The Manifesto covers a lot of ground in a way only Drudge could do it. No chapters, no table of contents, no rules, it's all laid out in the way Drudge sees fit. Just like the Drudge Report that made him famous.

The Manifesto tells the story of the Cyber wonder boy growing up in DC. It covers the early days of the Drudge Report in his Hollywood Apartment. And of course, it details the whirlwind that is now Drudge's life. Oh yea and he even recounts the events that led to the story of all stories that eventually impeached the President of the United States or POTUS as Drudge calls him.

One thing that makes Matt's life so ironic is that he grew up in the same city he has now terrorized for over two years. Drudge writes that as a newspaper delivery boy in the Nation's Capitol delivering papers usually came second to reading and penciling in better and more sensational headlines to the papers he was supposed to deliver.

"On the day President Reagan was shot, the star header was far too wordy. I just knew I'd do it better if I were in charge." No deadline, no editor, no bureau chief. Drudge is definitely in charge.

In his news room "built by Radioshack" he has the ability to access dozens of wire services, instant message a Whitehouse staffer, e-mail a conservative talk show host and just maybe drop the latest bombshell to rock the nation.

The book, interspersed with poems, quotes, stories, and pages containing one sentence, makes it clear that the Drudge Manifesto is like no other.

It is impossible to choose one single thing that makes the Manifesto so unique. There are so many unique elements contained in the pages of the Drudge Manifesto, too many to even note.

The book even takes a not so subtle swipe at the cutest media personality of all time: Katie Couric. Apparently Katie Couric's coverage of the year 2000 celebration in Times Square didn't sit to well with Drudge. Several times throughout the book Drudge flashes Katie's quote from 12:20 am on New Years Eve "This is really boring."

The swipe comes full circle toward the end of the Manifesto when he answers his own question posed to Katie Couric: `Yo, Katie! You may have the best seat in the house for the biggest party in the history of New York City......... And if you're bored, it's because..." Then the reader turns to see the next page which contains only two words in 6 font: "you're boring."

Once again, proving that he cares nothing for earning personality points from his peers.

" If I'm not interesting, the world's not interesting. If the DRUDGE REPORT is boring, the world is boring," Drudge proclaims.

His web site, which currently receives over a million hits a day from around the globe is definitely not boring and the same goes with his manifesto which, has now hit #1 on Amazon.com.

Definitely a good read, but the reader may have to go a little slower than usual to try to follow the `Drudgespeak' when it's used. The cyber wonderboy uses his own distinct language:

"Welcome to the Zeroe's, pal. You'll get it where you want it. The buffet's bigger than at WynnBellagio. I like to start my meal with the XINHUA wire from China mixed with KYODO from Japan."

So grab a cup of coffee or an extra strength Mountain Dew and hold on for a ride into Matt's Drudge's cyber world that you will not soon forget.