Chain-o-lies
- Using an obscure publication known to only be read by members of your group, to break a false story that will be picked up by other publications of your group that are also read by members of the opposition.
- The story is legitimized as it continues to be picked up by unsuspecting neutral news media organizations."
- "Typically, the [American] Spectator would break the story, 'forcing' the [Wall Street] journal, the [Washington] Times, and the New York Post to comment on what was now a legitimate news item that was being ignored by the liberal dominated news media.
- "The [Wall Street] Journal ran sixty-four editorials discussing [Vince] Foster's death, systematically sewing seeds of suspicion on his so-called 'suicide.'" [...] "This continued even after two successive independent counsels (one of them, Kenneth Starr, a man not generally considered to be in the Clinton's pocket) concluded that Foster's death was, in fact, a suicide"1
- The story is further laundered through circulation by foreign news sources like The London Sunday Telegraph.
- Television News Networks and Radio Talk Show Hosts can then talk about the rumor as "a story reported in the [blank] News..."
- If the source of the rumor is only an editorial, the Pundits can say "The story being talked about in the [blank] News..."
- The editorial slowly grows into a legitimate news story in the minds of the viewing public, but can still be denied by the sources as "only an editorial". Cognitive Psychologists call this "Implicit memory" that creates a false belief that the story must be true because people are not willing to admit that they do not know all of the facts. The final link in the chain reaction is self-deception. See repeated assertion.
Franken, Al. Lies, (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. 2003 Dutton, New York. ISBN 0-525-94764-7