One Moment, Please… Are We Being Manipulated?

By Jason Sethre

Publisher

Fillmore County Journal

jason@fillmorecountyjournal.com

Here’s the rest of the story.

Last week, I referenced a letter to the editor we received from a “resident of Chatfield.”  We were ready to publish the letter, and then another letter arrived in the email inbox of our assistant editor. The exact same letter, but with a different author’s name and city. I reached out to both letter to the editor authors and received no response.

Here’s what is disturbing.  After I copied and pasted this letter into Google, and searched the Internet, I found that this exact same letter to the editor had been published in seven other newspapers from coast to coast. All with different authors, but 100% the exact same message, word-for-word.

This letter to the editor was published verbatim on the following newspaper websites.

Oswego County Today in Fulton, New York

Village-News in The Villages, Florida

Times-Standard in Eureka, California

Yonkers Times in Yonkers, New York

The Chattanoogan in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Baltimore Post-Examiner in Baltimore, Maryland

The Ventura County Star in Oxnard, California

Who knows how many other newspapers published this letter to the editor? One thing is for sure. As newspaper publishers, we have to be diligent about what we allow for publication. 

Upon further research, I found that both letters to the editor came from www.newmode.net.  This is a campaign platform that generates messages with participants names and submits them to a database of media contacts. In addition, they help social media campaigning and funding opportunities.

Political activists are using professional campaign platforms like New Mode to generate and disseminate letters to the editor to newspapers at mass scale. They offer plans that range from free to $349 per month.

Whatever they are doing is working. Some of these letters are getting published without scrutiny.

It’s disappointing to say the least. Where is the authenticity?  Where is the original thought?  Why are these getting published?

In the past, we’ve had to worry about plagiarism or chain letters. But this is on a different scale.  This is a deliberate effort to exploit and even sully the use of the First Amendment.

Unfortunately, this makes our job at the newspaper even more challenging. In the past, local readers submitted a letter to the editor, and we could easily substantiate that it came from a real person living in our area.

When we receive a letter to the editor submitted by a company specializing in campaign strategies under the guise of a local resident from our area, it’s apparent that we are being manipulated.  Not just us, but all media.  If the media can be strategically beguiled with intentionally divisive content, then we should collectively take a step back and consider the information we are consuming.

I think we have every reason to be concerned.