Cut-and-Paste Propaganda Infiltrates Opinion Pages

[Rose Siding]

Reader, beware! Some of America's newspapers have become unwitting conduits for campaign propaganda.

Thanks to some nifty Internet technology, President Bush and John F. Kerry's campaigns are making it easy for their supporters to pass off the campaigns' talking points as just another concerned citizen's opinion. Pro-Bush or pro-Kerry letters bearing identical language are flooding letters-to-the-editor columns.

The Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y., for example, ran a letter last month from a local reader that stated, "New-job figures and other recent economic data show that America's economy is strong and getting stronger, and that the president's jobs and growth plan is working."

The exact same phrasing also appeared in letters printed in about 20 other daily newspapers, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Idaho Statesman and the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22539-2004Aug21.html?nav=rss_politics

and just for fun:

snip>
Problem is, editors -- like English teachers -- prefer that letter writers to think for themselves.

[kikiek]

1. How sad. Gone the route of TV news with its already prepared "news

stories" given to them from PR firms. Sounds more like 1984 everyday.

[A_Possum]

2. They accuse the Kerry campaign of doing it but...

I don't see any "mediacorps" link on kerry's site. There is a link for "Contact Media" under volunteering, but you have to sign up with telephone address and e-mail first, which I don't want to do (YET) so I dont' know what it leads to.

Does anyone else know? They make it sound in this article like both campaigns are doing the same thing.

[lostnfound]

3. If Bush does bad, both are guilty. If Kerry does bad, slam him to be fair.

Isn't that the rule? It's not the first time.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

4. http://www.johnkerry.com/mediacorps

Of course, you're supposed to write your own letter. Bush's actually generates a letter for you automatically, I think.


http://www.johnkerry.com/mediacorps

[DeepModem Mom]

5. CONTACTS IF ARTICLE IS IN ERROR: [e-mail]...

for the WP reader rep, and [e-mail], for the writer Paul Farhi.

[underpants]

6. "Astroturf" letters AGAIN?!?!?

They did this before, what a year ago?

They are called "Astrotruf" because they are meant to appear to be "grassroots" letters when actually they are fake.

[Robb]

9. Yep indeedy

Old threads here and here on the less obvious way to go about it. :eyes:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you must've not covered the first fooling in your $*&^$ newspaper.

[thebigidea]

7. cut-and-paste propaganda infects print media, tv news.

I guess cut-and-paste propaganda is another way to say "talking points"

The 1st and 4th most liberal senators! Out of the mainstream!

[Toots]

8. Well that editor certainly wasn't much like an English teacher

LOL that was a good catch. A morning chuckle.