Eric Boehlert wonders if Drudge isn't losing his influence. I think it's hard to say, because it's really unclear what the nature of Drudge's influence is. Is it his ability to drive traffic? His ability to undercut the rest of the media's standards and punch salacious stories into the mainstream? His status as the first of the major political news aggregators? Seems unclear. Boehlert pegs his decline to the economic crisis, and the fact that Drudge doesn't "do" serious. But then what happens when the crisis closes? Does Drudge return to preeminence? Is his role increasingly marginal now that we have sites like The Page and The Note and the Playbook? It's hard to say, because there's no objective reason for Drudge's importance. he matters insofar as the media takes cues from him. But it's never been clear why the media takes cues from him. And without any real clarity on the nature of his influence, it's sort of hard to predict whether he'll continue to wield it.
