Boston Globe’s Ombudsman Reports:

“Astroturf” Letters to the Editor

On Feb. 3, Christine Chinlund, ombudsman for the Boston Globe discussed the following questions she posed to her readers: “When you see a letter to the editor in the Globe, do you presume it was written by the person whose name is on it? Does it matter?”

She revealed that, four times since mid-October, her newspaper “unwittingly published letters that were written not by the local folks who signed them, but by the Republican National Committee [RNC].” All the letters praised President Bush. The same letters also appeared nearly verbatim in other papers across the US; only the signatures were different to make it appear the writers were local.

Such letters are called ''astroturf'' (as in, “fake grass roots”).

Queries Chinlund, “Are such prefab letters a form of '’deception,’ as reader Amity Wilczek put it when she alerted the Globe to the 'scam.’ Or do they simply reflect how democracy works in the Internet age—no different, really, than a form letter sent to Congress?”

She adds that the RNC is “not alone in drafting prefab letters to the editor, or making them easy to e-mail.” She quotes GOP spokesman Kevin Sheridan as saying the RNC letter-writing campaign has been very successful, ''an important way to get grass-roots support for the president... out through the media.'' As for the Democratic Party, former Clinton press secretary Michael McCurry told her he had no problem with the practice.

The Globe’s Editorial Page Editor, Renee Loth, does have a problem with it. ''Readers have a right to assume that what they read on the letters page is not canned public relations material,'' she told the paper’s ombudsman.