Remember the Time Snapchat's New PR Chief Played Dirty NJ Politics?
The next time Snapchat's fratty young master puts his loafers in his maw, his newest hire will be there to assist: Jill Hazelbaker is the app's new communications director, and she has a penchant for internet gaffes herself.
Back in 2006, when Evan Spiegel was 16 and nobody knew the word "app," Hazelbaker was working as a political operator for Thomas Kean Jr., a republican senate candidate from New Jersey (she later ran comms for the McCain campaign). It wasn't a pretty race, and the New York Times covered one particular bout in detail: New Jersey democrats accused Hazelbaker of an online astroturfing campaign, writing pseudonomyous comments on a dem-friendly blog that smeared Kean's opponent:
Ms. Hazelbaker called the accusations "nonsense," and said neither she nor anyone else she knows of in the office had anything to do with the postings. "I've never e-mailed them nor posted on the Web site," she said on Wednesday. "It's a blog. You can't believe what's posted on blogs." She declined to make Mr. Kean available to discuss the matter.
The Kean campaign's technical adviser said that the Internet protocol, or I.P., address that linked the posts to the Kean headquarters was an old one, "from over a month ago." But an e-mail message Ms. Hazelbaker sent to a reporter on Wednesday shares the same I.P. address.
Maybe Spiegal and Hazelbaker can exchange tips on how to most effectively fuck up email correspondence.