While most of us envision someone sitting at a keyboard, wracking their brain to condense their heartfelt thoughts into a well-written letter full of their own opinions backed up by factual information, it's not. In reality, it's what politicians and media call "astroturfing", manufactured, mass-produced "public opinion" designed to sway the media and their audiences.
This morning a letter critical of Robert F. Kennedy Jr's nomination as Health and Human Services secretary appeared in print. After reading the letter a few times, the Maven "Googled" a few of the sentences and found something strange. Those words and phrases in the JG letter matched a "write-your-own-letter" template on the MomsRising.org website. Kind of a "cut and paste" way of flooding one's local newspaper with opposition to Kennedy's nomination.
Here's the letter in the 2/11 JG, the writer's name has been blurred to protect their privacy.
The Maven added the red numbers to correlate with the MomsRising Talking Points below.
Well, here's where it came from:
The Maven is fairly certain this letter will not qualify for the Journal Gazette Gold Pen award for the best Letter to the Editor of the month.
