Don't Believe Everything You Read, John McCain Edition, Part 1 (Salon)

The assignment is simple: We are going to write letters to the editor and we are allowed to make up whatever we want -- as long as it adds to the campaign. After today we are supposed to use our free moments at home to create a flow of fictional fan mail for McCain. "Your letters," says Phil Tuchman, "will be sent to our campaign offices in battle states. Ohio. Pennsylvania. Virginia. New Hampshire. There we'll place them in local newspapers."

—Dutch journalist Margriet Oostveen, writing in Salon.com ("I ghost-wrote letters to the editor for the McCain campaign") about her experience as a paid letter-to-the-editor writer for the John McCain campaign.