Posted on 04/25/2005 5:23:38 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WALNUT CREEK, Calif. (AP) - A Republican activist has acknowledged sending hundreds of bogus letters to the editorial pages of San Francisco Bay area newspapers over the past decade, many of which were published.
Editors at the newspapers involved said Monday that they would intensify efforts to verify that letters to the editor are actually sent by the people who write them. However, technological advances have made bogus letters increasingly difficult to screen out, they said.
"It's important to verify the authenticity of the letters we receive," San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Page Editor John Diaz told The Associated Press. "It's a popular feature, and an important measure, barometer of public opinion. That said, I'm not sure there's any way to build an absolute firewall between us and anyone who hopes to defraud us."
The Contra Costa Times of Walnut Creek investigated after receiving a number of suspect letters and concluded in a Sunday story that Kyle Vallone, using fictitious identities, had managed to get at least 100 letters published in at least three newspapers - the Times, the Chronicle and the Tri-Valley Herald.
Vallone is a three-time delegate to the state Republican convention who coordinated the letters-to-the-editor campaign of former Republican Secretary of State Bill Jones during his 2004 run for the U.S. Senate.
The San Ramon resident said he began writing letters under fake names after working on a 1994 political campaign. He and other campaign workers would write letters on behalf of a candidate, then send them to a "tree" of supporters who would sign and mail them.
Confronted by the Times, Vallone admitted that eventually skipped that middle step and simply sent most of the letters himself, using pseudonyms, free e-mail accounts and various voice mail systems to pull off the hoax. "That probably wasn't the correct thing to do, but we were just having fun. It wasn't like something that we took really seriously," Vallone told the Times.
Vallone also was a delegate to last summer's Republican National Convention in New York. An Associated Press profile at the time listed his age at 46. He didn't respond Monday to messages left by the AP at this home and work.
Making up pseudonyms for publication isn't illegal, Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Jim Sepulveda said, but it raises ethical concerns at newspapers.
"Bogus letters have a tremendous effect on the readers," Times Editorial Page Editor Dan Hatfield said. "People need to be able to know that the letters to the editor are real people, writing about real issues."
The Times, Chronicle and Herald all require that letters to the editor be verified before they are published. The writer must provide a resident city and telephone number, and a newspaper employee must call and confirm that the writer sent the letter in.
Vallone said he got around their policies by perfecting different accents and using his imagination.
"I am very good (at accents)," he said. "It was all just a creative thing. I just got to use my brain to create these folks."
Tom Tuttle, editorial page director for the ANG Newspaper group that includes the Pleasanton-based Tri-Valley Herald, said it's increasingly difficult to authenticate letters from readers.
"You always want to get away from deception, but the technology is such that it's relatively easily done," Tuttle told the AP. "It's a problem. It's definitely a problem."
As letters coordinator for the Jones Senate campaign, Vallone said he sent at least eight letters to the Times that either blasted Jones' opponent, Democrat Barbara Boxer, or supported Jones. A Jones campaign spokesman said he had no knowledge of Vallone's letter-writing deceptions.
The Times began investigating after receiving several letters before the November 2004 election that matched an anonymous flier criticizing the Antioch mayor.
The identities and addresses given for the letter writers turned out to be false, but one letter - attributed to a Richard Copenhaver of Antioch - listed a cell phone that was linked to Vallone. When a reporter called the number, Vallone put on a phony accent and pretended to be Copenhaver.
Diaz believes the case was fairly unusual, given the lengths to which Vallone went to perpetrate the hoax. A larger problem for editorial page editors, he says, is so-called "Astroturf" campaigns where letters are generated by a special interest group.
"When I look at the letters-to-the-editor in-box, I can tell an orchestrated campaign," Diaz said. "You can tell when people use the same messages and talking points."
I'm always posting here that we should hold republicans to the same standards as dems--if a R does something wrong, we should pounce on him as we would a D. But this is, uh, LAME. A guy used pseudonyms? So what? If the paper selected the letters based on content, what's the big deal? They got hoodwinked, that's their problem.
Samuel Clemens will be happy to hear that.
Big deal. The DNC has thousands of activists working as journalists at newspapers throughout America.
What is the issue?
They gave a conservative view and tried to keep their identity private.
Shouldn't this be titled,
Democrat activists use pseudonyms to get threads posted?
Well at least he actually wrote them himself.
The scumbag paper is only going to print the letters that fit it's agenda. Requiring a name is simply censorship. Try taking an unpopular positions ("we should leave kitties in the tree and not waste fire department time rescuing them" or "smokers should not be allowed to smoke in public, anytime, anywhere") and see the number of nasty calls you get in the early morning hours. The result of the name requirement is the surpression of certain opinions; it is censorship!
And, groups have been doing this for years. The dems do it, of course, but who in the media would dare question that!
The founding fathers did this all the time, e.g., the Federalist was published in newspapers under the name of Publius.
Darkwolf is obviously not your real name? At least I give my real name here.
oops sorry didn't read your whole post. :)
I am so bad.
Just wondering. Why does conservatives give letters to the editors of those rag papers? It only gives credence to those papers.
Yes, you are...because it IS my real name! Mom always told me not to be ashamed, but I can't help it! YOU try typing with these paws!! :(
;)
most editors are so f'n dumb they'd print letters by
Seymore Butts and I.P. Freely without a clue.
most editors are so f'n dumb they'd print letters by
Seymore Butts and I.P. Freely without a clue.
HaHa! Thats so funny! Cuz my real name is Ian Paul Freely.
LOL..
I can only imagine some of the names.. ;-)
My real name is J.J. Lackluster...
>>As letters coordinator for the Jones Senate campaign, Vallone said he sent at least eight letters . . .
There was a Jones Senate campaign? Who knew? ;-)
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