Reply #88: Here's a story about when it happened before

[rocktivity]

Automated letters to the editor
Online Journalism Reviews
posted: 2003-01-28 • modified: 2003-01-29
A word of advice to the folks who choose the "Letters to the Editor" at newspapers everywhere: Do a Google search on key phrases before printing them...Dozens of papers were burned recently, printing word-for-word letters signed by different people, but spawned by a simple Web tool offered by the Republican Party at GOPTeamLeader.com.

The...success of this "Astroturf" (for fake grassroots) campaign is a wake-up call to techno-unsavvy newspaper types...70-plus outlets...ran the same letter starting with "When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership..."

It's the unsavvyness of the senders that's to blame. Are they really so unknowledgable about the Internet that they thought they would get away wish this, or are they blinded by their arrogance?


rocknation

On edit: It's their arrogance--here's a web page with EIGHT such letters!
http://www.failureisimpossible.com/dosomething/sod.htm