"OccupyDC Emails Show MSM, Dylan Ratigan, Working With Protesters To Craft Message."

Dana Loesch reveals.

Big Journalism has learned that the Occupy Washington DC movement is working with well-known media members to craft its demands and messaging while these media members report on the movement. Someone has made the emails from the Occupy D.C. email distro public and searchable. The names in the list are a veritable who’s who in media....

In these emails we see MSNBC’s Ratigan, hawking his book in the footnotes, instructing occupiers on how properly to present their demands and messages while simultaneously appearing on television reporting “objectively” on the story (when he’s not taking part in the protests himself as content.)...

We know that the original movement was kicked off by a Soros-funded group called Adbusters; that union groups and radicals routinely overthrow leadership unfriendly to an occupation of the occupation (check out how Occupy St. Louis was hijacked by ACORN off-shoot MORE); and now we know that media, including MSNBC itself, is apparently helping occupiers better influence the public by both writing their messages and giving them a platform.

Here's the searchable data base.

"If Ann wanted to sue people who falsely reported her blog as a spam-blog, could she make Google cough up their information?"

"I think the answer is yes."

Says lawprof Glenn Reynolds, contemplating the possibility that Google removed my blog because, as a longtime reader/former Google employee wrote:

Blogger lets users report spam blogs here...

so one possibility is that people who don’t like Ann’s blog launched an astroturf campaign to get her marked as spam.

"No wonder these people assumed the Tea Party movement had to be some kind of astroturf."

"They were just relying on their own experience."

"How is this opposition to the mosque being funded? How is this being ginned up?”

Asks Pelosi, going all conspiracy theory. It just can't be that people — and it's the vast majority of Americans! — actually read/hear news reports and commentary and arrive at opinions.

Meanwhile, the right is headed over to the conspiracy place too.

Could somebody shed some more light on Ellie Light?

I don't get it. Wouldn't a skilled astroturfer be much smarter, varying the letter and changing the writer's name? It's like "she" wanted to get caught... so who's behind this?

"You are also a paid astrotroller."

A comment on the "Brokaw's bizarre" post that got me wondering.

I know what an astrotroll/astrotroller is (and it hasn't even got an Urban Dictionary definition, which makes me feel very in-the-know). It's a commenter engaged in astroturfing.

Wikipedia says:

Astroturfing in American English is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising which seek to create the impression of being spontaneous "grassroots" behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.

The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event.

Does anyone really think that some of the commenters here are paid representatives of any political campaign or cause? It seems to me that there are many self-appointed boosters of one candidate or another, willing to put in a lot of effort for no pay. I've seen the comments of the particular individual who was accused of astrotrolling, but I can't believe a campaign would pay someone just to post numerous boring/abusive comments. Wouldn't the campaign hire someone competent who would blend in with the style of the blog comments section, seem like a real person, and slip in strong pithy arguments?

The real AstroTurf™ is green, not orange. The real Althouse astrotroll should be offbeat, funny, and smart -- with a memorable pseudonym and some personal details. Up your game if you're getting paid.

IN THE COMMENTS: Paddy O. quotes my questions -- "Wouldn't the campaign hire someone competent who would blend in with the style of the blog comments section, seem like a real person, and slip in strong pithy arguments?" -- and says "You miss Titus, don't you?" Well, let me ask you people:

Do you miss Titus?
	Yes! Whatever that dispute was, I wish he'd come back.
	I'd like him back, but "miss" is going a bit far.
	No! He was off-topic/obscene/a troll/unfunny.
	Who's Titus?
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