How and why we weed out 'Astroturf' letters

With the general election little more than six weeks away, our letters to the editor mailbox is filled daily with passionate missives supporting candidates or skewering the political opposition or media coverage. Many of these letter writers will be disappointed. Their letters won't be considered for publication because they're what journalists now call "Astroturf" -- Internet-based letter-writing campaigns initiated by groups that provide the text or the talking points.

As a copy editor for the Post-Gazette's editorial page, I handle the letters to the editor, which means choosing 50 to 60 for publication each week from about 300 submitted and editing them for grammar, spelling and length and checking the factual content. In the almost seven years I've been at this job, I've tried to weed out letters that are part of a campaign. We want original letters expressing interesting ideas and opinions, rather than talking points generated by an organization or, worse, form letters.

Yea, sure Alice. Your desire that only "facts" and "nonpolitical" letters be published in your newspaper is so .... noble .... and .... intellectual .... and .... moral (not!).

Of course, we are not supposed to notice that in every issue, your newspaper blithely publishes the exact same falsehoods and politically biased articles from the same old left-wing sources such as AP, Knight-Ridder, New York Times, LA Times, UPI, Reuters, etc., that every other left-wing newspaper is publishing. Blanketing the country with the same old biased left-wing garbage.

Alice, we know that you will use these sources without comment, but then become agitated when the public attempts to comment on the accuracy, bias, and distortion of the articles.

And of course Alice, the fact that so many people are making the same complaints about the content of these articles by writing/emailing your fish rap paper isn't a reportable story.

No Alice, instead of responding to massive complaints about the falsehoods, bias, etc. in the articles by doing some investigation and bringing some truth to your readers, you snootily and condescendingly provide "instructions" to the peons about the "high journalistic standards" that you are applying to the letters, along with snide remarks about having to "correct" their grammar, spelling, etc.

Alice, you are a sad, silly woman currently holding a position for which you are neither intellectually competent, nor morally justified. Enjoy it Alice, your time of controlling public opinion, and bottle-necking the public's responses is slowly but surely coming to an end.

Pssst -- Alice. Beware the pajama clad rabble, they are coming with technological torches and pitchforks to destroy the Frankenstein monster called the MSM. And no matter how much time and effort you spend trying to justify and protect it, the MSM will continue to be exposed and ultimately put to rest, with a headstone reading "Even hiding behind the 1st Amendment couldn't save the lying, left-wing MSM. May it rest in eternal derision.".

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