Strong credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defence other techniques must be employed The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative compliant press and a mere token opposition party
Dummy up. If it's not reported. if it's not news, it didn't happen.
2 Wax indignant. This is also known as the "How dare you gambit
Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, wild rumors." if, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to leam about the suspicious facts. can only be through "rumors." (f they tend to believe the rumors must be because they are simply paranoid or "hysterical ") 4. Knock down straw men Deal only with the weakest aspects of the weakest charges. Even better create your own straw men. Make up wild tumors (or plant false stories) and give them
lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges real and fanciful alike
Call the skeptics names like "conspiracy theorist," "nutcase," "ranter," kook," "crackpot," and, of course rumor monger. Be sure too to use heavily loaded verbs and adjectives when characterizing their charges and defending the more reasonable government and its defenders. You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned. For insurance, set up your own "skeptics" to shoot down
Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (compared to over-compensated adherents to the government line who, presumably, are not
Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful
Dismiss the charges as "old news.
Come hait-clean. This is also known as confession and avoidance or taking the limited hangout route. This way you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively harmless less than criminal mistakes. This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from the one originally taken. With effective damage control the fall-back position need only be peddled by stooge skeptics to carefully limited markets
Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable
Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance With thoroughly rigorous deduction troublesome evidence is irrelevant Eg We have a completely free press If evidence exists that the Vince Foster suicide note was forged they would have reported it. They haven't reported it so there is no such evidence Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a press who would report the leak
Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely. Eg If Foster was murdered who did it and why?
Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or publicizing distractions
Lightly report incriminating facts, and then make nothing of them. This is sometimes referred to as "bump and run" reporting 15. Baldly and brazenly lie. A favorite way of doing this is to attribute the "facts" fumished the public to a plausible-sounding but anonymous, souce
Expanding further on numbers 4 and 5 have your own stooges "expose" scandals and champion popular causes. Their job is to preempt real opponents and to play 99-yard football A variation is to pay rich people for the job who will pretend to spend their own money
Flood the Internet with agents. This is the answer to the question, "What could possibly motivate a person to spend hour upon hour on Internet news groups defending the government
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression
Strong credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defence other techniques must be employed The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative compliant press and a mere token opposition party
2 Wax indignant. This is also known as the "How dare you gambit
lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges real and fanciful alike
Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (compared to over-compensated adherents to the government line who, presumably, are not
Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful
Dismiss the charges as "old news.
Come hait-clean. This is also known as confession and avoidance or taking the limited hangout route. This way you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively harmless less than criminal mistakes. This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from the one originally taken. With effective damage control the fall-back position need only be peddled by stooge skeptics to carefully limited markets
Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable
Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance With thoroughly rigorous deduction troublesome evidence is irrelevant Eg We have a completely free press If evidence exists that the Vince Foster suicide note was forged they would have reported it. They haven't reported it so there is no such evidence Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a press who would report the leak
Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely. Eg If Foster was murdered who did it and why?
Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or publicizing distractions
Lightly report incriminating facts, and then make nothing of them. This is sometimes referred to as "bump and run" reporting 15. Baldly and brazenly lie. A favorite way of doing this is to attribute the "facts" fumished the public to a plausible-sounding but anonymous, souce
Expanding further on numbers 4 and 5 have your own stooges "expose" scandals and champion popular causes. Their job is to preempt real opponents and to play 99-yard football A variation is to pay rich people for the job who will pretend to spend their own money
Flood the Internet with agents. This is the answer to the question, "What could possibly motivate a person to spend hour upon hour on Internet news groups defending the government