Everyone Is Claiming To Be Ellie Light, Letter Writer Extraordinaire

by Joe Coscarelli | 3:31 pm, January 26th, 2010

» 6 comments

This morning, we told you about Ellie Light — the fake or maybe-not-fake woman (or man or group?) who had an identical Letter to the Editor published in nearly 50 newspapers around the United States in defense of President Obama. Some conservatives hate her and think it’s representative of the Democrats feigning grassroots support, while everyone else is just lost! The Cleveland Plain Dealer, who originally had the story, thought they figured it out — then, Gawker did. We’re still confused.

The Dealer said that Ellie Light is a nurse from California named Barbara Brooks. Now, their findings include an update at the top stating, “A woman claiming to be Barbara Brooks has now contacted the Plain Dealer and said she is not the letter writer; she claims her ex-husband is running a spoof.” Wait, what?

According to Gawker, Brooks’ ex-husband is Winston Steward:

“I’m not Ellie Light,” she told us. “My husband is. I never told anybody that I was Ellie Light. Winston wrote every single letter. He’s been doing it since he saw that the Gulf War was being fought under false pretenses. I told him from the beginning that he shouldn’t write letters under phony names, but he wanted to get them out there.”
…
“That wasn’t me,” she says. “I don’t know how they got that. Maybe my husband was impersonating me.” As evidence, she cites this clip of her husband calling into Michael Smerconish’s radio show to claim responsibility for the letters. Steward called in and spoke in his regular voice, and neither Smerconish nor any other listener apparently caught on to the fact that he was a man. If he can pretend to be a woman on the radio without really trying, Brooks says, maybe he talked to the Plain Dealer’s reporter, too.

Now, copycats are coming out of the woodwork to claim they’re Ellie Light. And yet, we’re still confused how one letter can get picked up by so many unconnected newspapers. It’s quite an impressive feat and a question falling by the wayside! No matter who “she” is, what is this magical power she has over editors? Maybe a newspaper should just hire her to write op-ed columns.

Oh, and “I broke the dam!”:

(photo)

Barbara Brooks, Ellie Light, fox news, Gawker, Glenn Greenwald, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, Obama Astroturfing, Salon Glenn Greenwald, Sean Hannity, Who Is Ellie Light?

http://www.uselessbeauty.com Vidiot

I’d like to hear from the newspapers involved about their verification practices. Do they check out the addresses and phone numbers associated with the letters before they print them? Every time I’ve had a letter or comment printed in the NYT, I’ve gotten a call from someone at the Times, asking my name and verifying that I wrote what I said I wrote.
StewartIII

Hot Air: “Ellie Light” story turns a little bit freaky and a whole lot deaky
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/26/ellie-light-story-turns-a-little-bit-freaky-and-a-whole-lot-deaky/
http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

@Vidiot: I’ve seen some papers say that contact info must be provided, but I’ve never had a paper call me to verify a “Letter to the Editor”. Maybe he/she sent it to some places that attempted to verify and did not print, but nothing about this is a crime or even embarrassing for a paper. It’s pretty much in the same ballpark as those old pre-worded letters activist groups would distribute.
http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

PS) Maybe if some uninvolved blog is going to make this a bigger deal than a human interest story, perhaps they should institute a policy that no comments will be allowed, if they’re essentially the same as those submitted elsewhere.
pyrope

There are lots of Ellie Lights out there but there is only one John Galt.
pyrope

The “real” Ellie Light” is Barney Fwank in dwag.