Joe Nocera:
" “So this is how the Big Lie works.

"You begin with a hypothesis that has a certain surface plausibility. You find an ally whose background suggests that he’s an “expert”; out of thin air, he devises “data.” You write articles in sympathetic publications, repeating the data endlessly; in time, some of these publications make your cause their own. Like-minded congressmen pick up your mantra and invite you to testify at hearings.

" You’re chosen for an investigative panel related to your topic. When other panel members, after inspecting your evidence, reject your thesis, you claim that they did so for ideological reasons. This, too, is repeated by your allies. Soon, the echo chamber you created drowns out dissenting views; even presidential candidates begin repeating the Big Lie.

" Thus has Peter Wallison, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a former member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, almost single-handedly created the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis. His partner in crime is another A.E.I. scholar, Edward Pinto, who a very long time ago was Fannie’s chief credit officer.” "

Supposed log of Anonymous IRC chat from #reporter. Note that biella (Gabriella Coleman) chats as a member of Anonymous, referring to herself and them as "us", and denigrates another Anon who asks pointed questions about Anonymous leadership.

... so he's a lying sack. " Hari said in a blog posting he used such quotes when people had expressed the same sentiment during an interview, but had “said it more clearly in writing than in speech.” In some cases he added descriptions of the setting in which the words were allegedly said to him. "

Politics as Product Placement, or how well-funded think tanks are paying pundits to be shills/stooges

" As PR becomes ascendant, private and government interests become more able to generate, filter, distort, and dominate the public debate, and to do so without the public knowing it. "What we are seeing now is the demise of journalism at the same time we have an increasing level of public relations and propaganda," McChesney said. "We are entering a zone that has never been seen before in this country." "

" There is no warning whatsoever. And Righthaven’s demands are excessive: $150,000 for a single infringement and the surrendering of the domain name to Righthaven. That last demand, which has no basis in copyright law whatsoever, is the hammer Righthaven uses to extort money from some of the more significant web sites. "

" Unfortunately, the Air Force's contract description doesn't help dispel suspicions. As the text explains, the software would require licenses for 50 users with 10 personas each, for a total of 500. These personas would have to be "replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent." "

" The trainer, Austin James, was instructing Tea Party members on how to "manipulate the medium". This is what he told them: "Here's what I do. I get on Amazon; I type in 'Liberal books'. I go through and I say 'one star, one star, one star'. The flipside is you go to a conservative/ libertarian whatever, go to their products and give them five stars "

"But I’ve always disliked “framing” as a strategy for influencing the global-warming debate. Framing is just spinning, and neuroframing is spinning plus brain scans."

"But the article did not mention Mr. Peterson, his backing of The Fiscal Times, that he was a co-founder of the Concord Coalition or that his foundation was a major underwriter of the coalition."

"For years, MacDonald defended his research as apolitical and scientific, but that defense fell apart after the millennium, when MacDonald embarked on a white supremacist speaking tour. Last December, MacDonald dropped the defense altogether and declared his dislike for Jews."

"Elsevier, the world's largest publisher of primary scientific literature, created an entirely new, seemingly peer-reviewed journal after receiving payments from Merck. According to The Scientist, Merck paid an undisclosed amount of cash to Elsevier to launch the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which largely contained content favorable to Merck's products - particularly Vioxx - but did not disclose the sponsorship."

" Mr. Churchill faced withering cross examination on Tuesday by the university’s lawyer, Patrick O’Rourke. Mr. O’Rourke said Mr. Churchill’s practice of ghostwriting essays for other scholars and then citing them to support his own theories on the persecution of American Indians was severely problematic. “The only evidence we’ve heard from anyone other than you about this scholarly practice, is from 20 people tenured at C.U., all of whom say this is wrong,” Mr. O’Rourke said." "

"It's hard to explain why the article isn't simply deleted; or, better, loudly labeled as a fake so that we can learn even from fakes."

"Last week, 3,000 copies of the New School Free Press were stolen on the day it was published. ... mostly it was a group of radical students, angered by our portrayal of their organization, who attempted to silence our voices through such a crude and undemocratic method. "

"I can’t think of a good way to go about excising someone from one’s archives, because I think it’s entirely wrong to do so in the first place. But doing so and not talking about it for a year does suggest a certain disdain for one’s audience"

"Dishes targeted to health-conscious consumers at popular chains such as Chili's, Taco Bell and Applebee's contained as much as twice the calories and eight times the grams of fat than the restaurants claimed in their published nutrition information"

Not a doctor, not a rower, and worst of all... sold drugs in a television commercial in the first place.

Giles:"The companies started by bankrolling academics opposed to smoking restrictions,including economists who questioned the financial benefits of the restrictions & anthropologists who argued that smoking brings people together & so has social benefits"

"you can’t expose him from the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard. He created the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard. Fresco maintains strict control over the Prem Rawat article & countless related articles, keeping criticism of his guru to a bare minimum."

Wow, it's like Scientologists buying up multiple copies of L. Ron Hubbard's tripe at Waldenbooks to scam the sales figures. Well done, fanboys, well done. Also: the entire site is in Flash why, exactly?

"The US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has been caught conducting covert propaganda... deleting detainee ID numbers from Wikipedia, the systematic posting of unattributed "self praise" comments on news organization web sites..."

"Over the past year, I have run clandestine marketing campaigns meant to ensure that promotional videos become truly viral... I will share some of the techniques I use to do my job: to get at least 100,000 people to watch my clients’ “viral” videos"

"From 1999 through 2006, Mackey frequently posted comments about Whole Foods' stock performance in a Yahoo chat room... Mackey's anonymous remarks in the chat room appear to be boosterish, often... to support arguments for buying the stock."

"f we do not tell the truth, if we do not strive for accuracy in our spoken and written words, we will be held accountable. If we are not willing to accept correction or admit to our mistakes and immediately correct them, we lose credibility."

"Have a period? Save your cells?? Your Menstrual Stem Cells???? What the FUCK? I checked the archive, and I have NO IDEA what blog post this might apply to."

"I'm giving up on google adsense. I've removed the ads I had posted and I will likely cancel my whole account. ... The last straw came last night when I saw an ad up about menstrual stem cells."

"The wrong way, he said, is to create fake blogs (or "flogs") to create the illusion of positive sentiment. That was the approach Wal-Mart took with Edelman Public Relations last year. Edelman set up blogs ..."

"At least eight submissions of written evidence have come from medical professionals who have not disclosed their membership of Christian groups opposed to abortion on faith grounds."

"In the wake of its disastrous pre-war reporting on Iraq, the New York Times implemented new rules governing its use of unnamed sources. Its lead story on February 10, promoting Bush administration charges against Iran, violated those rules."

Gilligan: "Not only did you take my research out of context, you did so without my knowledge to support discriminatory goals that I do not agree with. What you wrote was not truthful..."

N.B. the crisis framing in this ostensibly objective article: "a variety of ticking time bombs set to explode soon after the 2008 presidential election, including the AMT, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare."

This is the initial version of the "7.65% solution" article on Wikipedia, dated 2005 October 18. The anonymous contributor (IP 70.103.236.194) is clearly a dedicated believer in the proposal, and clearly in dire need of writing help.

"Check out this new web site, America is Listening,... Many of the folks in the video are FreedomWorks members– great work!"

Joint project of the American Institute for Full Employment and FreedomWorks, and perhaps others. Advocates a private accounts "7.65% solution" for Social Security policy. The site does not identify its owners or backers in any way, disturbingly.

Take this with a large grain of salt. Alternate hypothesis: candidates in the closest races this article refers to are simply trying to avoid taking as many potentially polarizing positions as possible in order to maximize their appeal.

"...was in fact a well-planned out marketing campaign by the company. It reminds me how ExxonMobil and its public relations firm DCI Group tried to behave like teenagers making fun of global warming - it backfired."

"you have a huge and expensive public relations campaign denying that scientific consensus. This campaign is largely financed with money from energy companies... which is then lightly laundered through "think tanks"... or through industry front groups."

Undercutting of historical archive research w/ overrapid digitization mandates. "Rowland of Maryland added that projects like hers... shut down when a project is over. As a result, she said, any digital project needs a permanent home,"

Associated Press reporter Liz Sidoti burns her journalistic credibility by using the same poll numbers to write two articles with entirely opposite conclusions.

Includes Social Security as an "entitlement" program in a unified federal budget (as if it draws meaningfully from general revenues) rather than leaving it aside as a separate, self-supporting program.

Direct mail tactics of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) via their subsidiary, the National Retirement Security Task Force (NRSTF).

Conservative think-tank and media outlet. Argues that Social Security is variously in crisis, already spent, and vulnerable to being rescinded at any time by "Washington politicians". Site links to the Heritage Social Security calculator.

Direct mail tactics of the National Retirement Security Task Force, National Center for Public Policy Research, American Federation of Senior Citizens, United Seniors Association, Seniors Coalition, and others.

Says candidate Roskam claimed support for "individual retirement accounts" to the National Taxpayers Union, but claimed opposition to "privatizing the system" to the AARP.

"The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says."

Atypically credulous and/or press release driven: "Bush's plans to privatize Social Security", "Bush's call to privatize Social Security", and the single bystander quote is from someone who opposes any changes.

"Adnan Hajj, the photographer who sent the altered image, was also the Reuters photographer behind many of the images from Qana – which have also been the subject of suspicions for being staged."

"Today, a photograph, from Reuters, allegedly of bombing damage in Lebanon appears to have been altered ... to make the damage appear more dramatic and worse than it really is. ... this morning Reuters had admitted that the photograph was doctored."

"the NED has revealed that Reporters Without Borders received grants over at least three years from the International Republican Institute. ... The discovery of the grants reveals a major deception by the group, which for years denied it was getting any..

"This week, a junior Google official decided (wrongly) that Mango Sauce was offensive and arbitrarily pulled the plug on its advertising - leaving the site dead in the water."