I talked with Arianna Huffington tonight and asked how she got her scoop revealing who made the Hillary 1984 attack commercial. It was a true case of networked, bottoms-up journalism.
While the rest of media was tripping over themselves to do the same story of the Hillary ad, weeks after it came out, and idly wondering who made it, Arianna dispatched her troops to do real reporting. She said about 30 people were involved at first, making phone calls and digging into what they knew, debunking some leads and following others. Finally, it came down to contacts and a little technology. Arianna said that YouTube revealed nothing about the video’s maker or his account. But the guy apparently left some turkey tracks with his email. And a Huffpo person knew someone who knew someone — and so on — who confirmed the identity of the mysterious video man, Phil De Vellis.
Then Arianna called him. She said he was genuinely surprised and thought he would never be unmasked. She offered him the chance to write a post about what he did and why. After some delay — when he apparently dealt with his employers and become a former employee — he came back and delivered that post.
Arianna is admiring of him. She said he put out a message without any desire for fame. She says he told no lies in the ad.
I look at it differently. I think he hid, the chicken, behind online anonymity. It’s also quite possible that he did his man Obama no favors, as some will think the candidate made this and will think less of him for starting the attacks so early.
But Arianna and I agree that the campaigns, which are all about control, are going to be less and less in control as more people use YouTube and the internet to get their own messages out.
Blowback to the news about that Hillary attack video at HuffingtonPost includes this:
Nice going, de Vellis!
You’ve officially hurt the two leading Democratic candidates. Maybe next you can create something that insults Edwards.
And this:
I still think it is ridiculous. As if the democrats are not being swiftboated enough by the republicans, they cause dissention within the party by crap like this. And no matter how they protest Obama’s camp had nothing to do with it………I know by now over 100 voters and they are spreading fast who have cut Obama out of their democrat chance for voting. They don’t want anything to do with this negative stuff. And if in my group of people, we have so many mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, what do you think the rest of the country is doing. It hurt Obama more than it helped. It makes me want to vote for Edwards right now…this minute. I can stand negative ads. Hillary won’t get the nomination, she has too many republicans and their swiftboating and we see the other dems are trying to knock her out also. I wish I could say she would win, she would make a good president, but since I know she is not I am going with Edwards. Obama has lost the luster.
Last night, we sent out a challenge to the HuffPost team asking them to hit the phones and contact all their sources. As a result, we have learned the video was the work of Philip de Vellis, who was the Internet communications director for Sherrod Brown’s 2006 Senate campaign, and who now works at Blue State Digital, a company created by members of Howard Dean’s Internet Team.
In a statement released Wednesday evening, the Obama campaign said:
“The Obama campaign and its employees had no knowledge and had nothing to do with the creation of the ad. We were notified this evening by a vendor of ours, Blue State Digital, that an employee of the company had been involved in the making of this ad. Blue State Digital has separated ties with this individual and we have been assured he did no work on our campaign’s account.”
The Clinton campaign had no immediate comment.
The connection to the Obama camp, however, could pose a public relations problem for the campaign. Obama has argued that he is a different type of presidential candidate who rejects negative politics.
Fox News is reporting that Blue State Digital is a vendor for the Obama campaign and that one of the company’s founders is on a leave of absence and working on new media projects for the Obama campaign. No doubt a lot more to come.
And since I can’t get enough of that sledgehammer smashing through the screen:
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Jarvis adds: The video maker quits from a company doing work for Obama. What did they know and when did they know it? His post on Huffington:
The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton’s “conversation” is disingenuous. And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power.
Let me be clear: I am a proud Democrat, and I always have been. I support Senator Obama. I hope he wins the primary. (I recognize that this ad is not his style of politics.) I also believe that Senator Clinton is a great public servant, and if she should win the nomination, I would support her and wish her all the best.
I’ve resigned from my employer, Blue State Digital, an internet company that provides technology to several presidential campaigns, including, full disclosure, Obama’s. The company had no idea that I’d created the ad, and neither did any of our clients. But I’ve decided to resign anyway so as not to harm them, even by implication.
This ad was not the first citizen ad, and it will not be the last. The game has changed.
So apparently, he did it anonymously because he did have a link to Obama. The Swiftboaters were, at least, not anonymous.
Statement from Thomas Gensemer, Managing Director, Blue State Digital
This afternoon, an employee at our firm, Phillip de Vellis, received a call from Arianna Huffington of “The Huffington Post” regarding the “1984” video currently circulating online. Initially, de Vellis refused to respond to her requests. He has since acknowledged to Blue State Digital that he was the creator of the video.
Pursuant to company policy regarding outside political work or commentary on behalf of our clients or otherwise, Mr. de Vellis has been terminated from Blue State Digital effective immediately.
Blue State Digital is under contract with the Obama Campaign for technology pursuits including software development and hosting. Additionally, one of our founding partners is on leave from the company to work directly for the campaign at headquarters.
However, Blue State Digital is not currently engaged in any relationship with the Obama Campaign for creative or non-technical services.
Mr. de Vellis created this video on his own time. It was done without the knowledge of management, and was in no way tied to his work at the firm or our formal engagement [on technology pursuits] with the Obama campaign.
I have spoken with David Plouffe, Sen. Obama’s campaign manager, to inform him of this action and am appreciative of his understanding and ongoing support of our work.
We wish Mr. de Vellis well in his future endeavors.
