Who Is Ellie Light: Plain Dealer Reporter Details Obama Operative and Astroturfer

Cleveland Plain Dealer Reporter Blogs ^ | January 23, 2010 | Sabrina Eaton

[PittsburghAfterDark]

An interesting phenomenon has been occuring in various newspaper "Letters to the Editor" pages. A woman with the same name has had letters published in no fewer than 9 newspapers praising Obama while using various city and location residences.

Now it's one thing if the person(s) name was something like John Brown, Steve Smith, Amy Jones or any other number of common name combination. However the name being used is Ellie Light.

This may seem like much about nothing except for one small thing. The only Ellie Light that FReepers were able to locate by Lexis-Nexis or internet searches were a reporter that used to write for the Bergen Record.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2435422/posts?page=18

This reporter, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Washington bureau head, Sabrina Eaton has published several email exchanges with "Ellie Light" on her personal blog on cleveland.com. These exchanges are on the source URL for this post.

This is a very troubling development. Until it is known who "Ellie Light" the following questions are obvious.

- Who is behind the pseudonym "Ellie Light"?

- Is someone from the White House, Democratic party or a close ally employing someone conducting this kind of work?

- Why are newspapers failing to contact letter(s) to the editor to verify name, address/location and phone number and instead relying on email exchanges?

- Can you imagine these questions not being asked if they were the same name, publishing the same letter to the editor in various newspapers around the United States praising a Republican President?

I give major kudos to Sabrina Eaton for doing some true reporting and investigative work. I would be opposed to any White House or political party conducting such a campaign. This is a dangerous trend that's been revealed; newspapers are verifying even less and less information that they publish.

I urge Ms. Eaton and FReepers to stay abreast of this story and not let it die.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

This is really a great story for internet sleuthing and investigation.

I'm sure someone out there knows far better than I how to investigate this or track down "Ellie Light".

[gibtx2]

freeper nation... sniff this one out... i smell blood...

[MNJohnnie]

I suspect the author “Ellie Light” live in the DC region and works at 1799 New York Avenue Northwest Washington, DC 20006.

[Political Junkie Too]

I wonder if Ellie Light knows Gregory Packer?

-PJ

[skeptoid]

Read these - go to her homepage

[VicVega]

Ellie Light is the niece of Lilly White.

[skeptoid]

At her homepage, scroll down for a vid of her.

[LA Woman3]

I have an e-mail address for “Ellie Light”.

[MortMan]

Is her middle name Diane?

Then she’d be Ellie D. Light. ;-P

[OafOfOffice]

The editors of these newspapers should have verified the writer by phone number if she did not provide it with her comment. I would contact each newspaper editor and request she be confirmed by them.

[TornadoAlley3]

[Izzy Dunne]

Why did you attribute this to the blog?

By posting the way you did, you make it appear that the Cleveland paper published your comments, when they apparently didn't.

It's worth posting, but under your own name, not theirs.

[cripplecreek]

I’ve been looking through local papers. So far no luck but I will keep looking.

As for “ellie”, she’s done a fine job of making liberals look like lying clowns one more time.

[LadyPilgrim]

HillBuzz has some info on this.

[OafOfOffice]

Maybe she was hired off of a ad in craigslist for paid progressives to help stop conservatives. 80 to 120 hours a week.

Think about it. All he/she has to do is prove she wrote a letter or posted online for hours and get paid.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

The Cleveland Plain Dealer? They’re on the verge of collapse. They give away newspapers all the time. Subscriptions have dropped in all the suburbs. Very leftie paper.

[TornadoAlley3]

Ellie Mae

[cripplecreek]

Ellie Might

[LA Woman3]

Unrealistic expectations

A year ago, if we had read in the paper that employers were hiring again, that health care legislation was proceeding without a bump, that Afghanistan suddenly became a nice place to take your kids, we would’ve known we were being lied to. Back then, we recognized that the problems Barack Obama inherited as president wouldn’t go away overnight.

During his campaign, Obama clearly said that an economy that took eight years to break couldn’t be fixed in a year, that Afghanistan was a graveyard of empires and would not be an easy venture for us. Candidate Obama didn’t feed us happy-talk, which is why we elected him. He never said America could solve our health care, economic and security problems without raising the deficit. Instead, he talked of hard choices, of government taking painful and contentious first steps toward fixing problems that can’t be left for another day.

Right after Obama’s election, we seemed to grasp this. We understood that companies would be happy to squeeze more work out of frightened employees and would be slow to hire more. We understood that the banks that had extorted us of billions of dollars were lying when they said they would share their recovery. We understood that a national consensus on health care would not come easily. Candidate Obama never claimed that his proposed solutions would work flawlessly right out of the box, and we respected him for that.

But today the president is attacked as if he were a salesman who promised us that our problems would wash off come morning. He never made such promises.

It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything.

Ellie Light

Waco

link

[RonDog]

I wonder if Ellie Light knows Gregory Packer?

It took a while for me to find the original threads about him.

From Ann Coulter's "True Grit" [ANN COULTER outs the Times' Designated "Man in the Street"] column (6/11/2003):

...Another average individual eager to get Hillary's book was Greg Packer, who was the centerpiece of the New York Times' "man on the street" interview about Hillary-mania. After being first in line for an autographed book at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble, Packer gushed to the Times: "I'm a big fan of Hillary and Bill's. I want to change her mind about running for president. I want to be part of her campaign."

It was easy for the Times to spell Packer's name right because he is apparently the entire media's designated "man on the street" for all articles ever written.

He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public.

Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans' Day Parade. He was quoted at not one – but two – New Year's Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new "Star Wars" movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games – even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin's house in the Hamptons and the pope's visit to Giants stadium.

Are all reporters writing their stories from Jayson Blair's house?

STUART RAMSON/The Associated Press
Greg Packer of Huntington, N.Y., participates in discussion
during a historic 21st century town hall meeting yesterday
to consider World Trade Center site plans.