Wisconsin newspaper chain apologizes for running Ellie Light’s Astroturf letter
One down. Fiftysomething to go. An apology from Gannett Wisconsin Media for getting duped by Astroturf Ellie:
A woman named Ellie Light (if that is her real name) recently duped dozens of newspapers around the country, including some here in Wisconsin, into printing her letter praising President Barack Obama as if she were a local resident.
The letter appeared in three Gannett Wisconsin Media newspapers, including the Door County Advocate. As a result, it also appeared on the Green Bay Press-Gazette’s Web site.
…People intent on duping us are using more sophisticated methods all of the time. We catch many mass-mailed form letters, but this person managed to get past editors with a simple misstatement of fact.
Like many newspapers, the Press-Gazette already requires writers to provide a street address and phone number (not for publication) for verification purposes.
We still believe in the inherent honesty of many letter writers, but this case will find us reviewing the incident to determine whether additional safeguards are necessary.
We apologize that this letter appeared on our Web site.
Next?
***
I’ll be discussing the Astroturf presidency tonight on Hannity/FNC at approx. 9:30pm Eastern.
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Hat tip to them. Well said.
Plus the letter fit their narrative…
While you’re on Hannity, could you slap him for being such a RINO? Ask him if it’s true that he would like Gingrich to run in 2012. I heard him say it last Thursday when a caller sucked up to him and urged him to be Gingrich’s running mate. Hannity is such a GOP tool.
Thanks for the heads-up – is this a special appearance, or in lieu of your usual Wednesday appearances? I think I recall Hannity saying something about you doing a “Culture of Corruption”-based regular feature on his show…
Obama should give a special VIP guest seat at his State of the Union address to his most prolific letter-writing fan…
Ellie Light
Heh!
Now if most of them would just apologize for supporting Obambi…
Phil, I thought Hannity had lost his mind, too. And Gingrich is such a tool that he thinks he might have a snowball’s chance. Right.
I’ll add this: Hannity also said while talking with Michael steele a few weeks ago in a way that raised my left eyebrow for a second, was that “I am both a Republican and a conservative”…note which identity he placed first to describe himself…
…a “Freudian Slip”, perhaps?
Phil,
If it came down to Gingrich or Obama’s second term, where would you vote go?
Let’s just make sure it never comes to that decision, eh?
Good for them, but why didn’t they mention why they didn’t verify the authenticity of the letter? Their policy, as stated, was to ask for such information.
I would agree Tigerlady. The problem is that too many RINO’s control the national money and thus exert their power to put their candidates in place.
We all need to remember that an R does NOT mean conservative and starving the beast includes the entrenched in the party of R that think they know better than us who to put on ballots.
As the Brown election showed us, we need to only give to individual candidates that are ready to fight for the values of Americans that actually believe in the founding principles of this country.
All credit to Gannett Wisconsin for owning up. It would be refreshing if our president would own up to his failed policies, but I’m not expecting miracles.
Printed media won’t have to issue retractions or apologies after the government starts to keep them afloat with our tax money.
I noticed months ago Hannity is a CC(country club)Repukian, his guests, his acceptance of what his guests say without a word of question. McAmnesty, Steele and Gingrich to name but 3…all old timers, hanging on at the expense of party. The CCR’s are easy to spot, their the ones that lie like a lib.
Just another in a long line of Limbaugh impersonators. If you can’t get your head and heart right, don’t try to fake it. Hannity is becoming as irrelevant as O’Reilly…both have fatheaditis.
Michelle awesome as always on Hannity tonight. God Bless You Michelle!
He does have the second or third ranked radio show….but I concur, I can’t listen to him either, especially when he has his buds Bob Beckel or Juan Williams on.
Williams is bad enough but why Fox give Beckel a minute of air time?
Anyone actually believe this?
I don’t believe that over 50 newspapers were all “duped” by the Astroturfer. I think there was complicity on their part.
WOW! that’s amazing that this paper is actually showing integrity. Bravo!
Zyzzyg’s got a point:
Why are they setting up new policies when they didn’t follow the last?
Exactly.
It’s BS. More digging needs to be done on this.
Ellie Light ~ Obama’s new Media Czar.
Hopefully they are saying they got a bit lazy and not “wow we really liked this letter so much we threw out the rules and are sorry we got burned“.
Perhaps it is only coincidence but the Lotus Elite back in the 60s was called the Ellie Light by some of it’s aficionados.
I think they did follow the procedures they had in place.
FTA:
It seems the verification policy they had in place wasn’t very good.
It seems the policy was based on “inherent honesty”. Used to be a valid principal on which to base policy. Now, sadly, it’s just naieve.
Whether the papers who published this were complicit or not is just speculation on our part. Could be just probability – If the letter was spammed to say 5,000 publications, and 1% published it, you get the present result. It wouldn’t be hard to program spam to insert a local address for each recipient.
Either way, it speaks of an organized, sophisticated and significant effort beyond what you’d expect from just some independent zealot, which I’d bet the farm is how the administration will spin this.
Propaganda. Now, wouldn’t it be nice to see the MSM do their job and get to the bottom of this liar.
Not to mention he has constantly entertains media hogs like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on his show, which gives them a credibility they don’t deserve. Anytime somebody sees either of them, people should do nothing but screech “Tawana Brawley! Duke Lacrosse!”
Please read yesterday’s column by James Taranto in the WSJ. It suggests that there has been a massive spam sent out by “Ellie Light” and that these letters keep coming. If that is true, what took these editors so long to become wise to it? Furthermore, the emails IP tracers suggest that they originate from various countries. That means someone is using an IP spoofer to send out these letters.
The Left: “Ellie’s fake but accurate.” So it doesn’t matter if she’s astroturf.
This is just the Whitehouse trying to be cool to the “Gamer” crowed, but as usual,epic fail! You don’t spell Elite as Ellie Light, it’s L33t! Noobs got pwned! Woot!
GANNET followed their proceedure perfectly, when the story fits our preconcieved beliefs, PRINT IT! when the story doesn’t fit our propoganda ideology, SPIKE IT!
This is why national ID cards would be useless. The government will issue them to everyone and then refuse to check them when it really matters like going to a voting booth or getting on an airplane. But you bet they will demand it if you drive through Ohio with a Constitution Party bumper sticker on your car!
THE LAST THING WE NEED IS ANOTHER GOVERNMENT PROGRAM!
How difficult would it have been for the SEIU to have come up with 50 different names and change the letter just a little bit for each market? This is NOT rocket science here. Man, can’t these guys do ANYTHING right (other than rig elections, that is)…