Ellie Light – Obama Fan One Through Thirty-Five? Update

Who is Ellie Light and what is she trying to accomplish? In recent days, nearly twenty newspapers around the country have received emailed letters of support for President Barack Obama signed by a person calling herself Ellie Light. The letters are nearly identical to one another in content. The only difference between them is that each one has Ellie Light residing in a different part of the country.

Ellie Light sure gets around.  In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical “Letters to the Editor” in support of President Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.  Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be in the newspaper’s circulation area.

Associated Press
President Barack Obama has both detractors and fans. A curious number of his fans are named Ellie Light.
“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,” said a letter from alleged Philadelphian Ellie Light, that was published in the Jan. 19 edition of The Philadelphia Daily News.

A letter from Light in the Jan. 20 edition of the San Francisco Examiner concluded with an identical sentence, but with an address for Light all the way across the country in Daly City, California.

Variations of Light’s letter ran in Ohio’s Mansfield News Journal on Jan. 13, with Light claiming an address in Mansfield; in New Mexico’s Ruidoso News on Jan. 12, claiming an address in Three Rivers; in South Carolina’s The Sun News on Jan. 18, claiming an address in Myrtle Beach; and in the Daily News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on Jan. 15, claiming an address in Waynesboro. Her publications list includes other papers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and California, all claiming separate addresses.

Light – who e-mailed an identical missive to this reporter on Jan. 16 without listing a hometown – would not answer e-mailed questions about the address discrepancies in newspapers that ran her letter, or her identity, although she did say she wasn’t a former co-worker of this reporter’s who had a similar name.
“I do not write as a representative of any organization,” she said in an e-mail. “The letter I wrote was motivated by surprise and wonderment at the absence of any media support for our President, who won a record-breaking election by a landslide less than 18 months ago, and now, seems to be abandoned by all, supposedly for the infantile reason that he couldn’t make all of Bush’s errors disappear in one day.”

University of Missouri journalism professor Tom Rosenstiel, co-author of a textbook on journalistic values titled “The Elements of Journalism,” reacted with surprise and wonderment upon learning of Light’s widespread publication under multiple addresses.  He said newspapers might be able to avoid similar situations in the future by requesting street addresses and home telephone numbers from would-be correspondents, and verifying that those addresses and phone numbers exist.  ”Just because it is inconvenient for us in the news business to find out who people are doesn’t mean it isn’t important anymore,” Rosenstiel said. “It is not OK for people to have multiple identities. This is something that people in the news business and in the business of printing “letters to the editor” need to be aware of.”

Ellie Light has now appeared in over 35 newspapers across the country. It’s the talk of the net this morning. As I wrote yesterday, ‘she’ claims residence in each paper’s district and then fires off very similarsounding diatribes in support of the Obamanation.

This Ellie Light story gets stranger and stranger for me. Recall that right off the bat I thought that Ellie Light was perhaps thepseudonym of a troll from the Obama admin. (or hundreds) and perhaps from the David Plouffe-run Organizing for America. On the same topic as well, an editor from the paper that published this story contacted me as well (LCR is growing!).

I have a theory. It seems to explain how this one (?) writer could get so many letters into so many papers, and may explain the IP masking…

Rock the Vote.

Back in September, I received this email from Thomas Bates, Rock the Vote:
(emphasis mine)

Now… When you click on the links in the email, you’re redirected to an automated letter-to-the-editor page. You input your zip code, and are given a list of papers local to you. I was given thirteen choices, and you can chose up to five papers. Next, you fill in your personal information, and the text of your letter. There’s even a handy “talking points” section you can use. (Mine covered health care – but since the text box is blank, you could write anything.)

You get to the bottom, click “Send Message”, and the papers you’ve chosen get your letter via email.

Is this the source of the letters?

Read on here….