Here’s how you play the hit-piece game: First, you develop a “hook” that’s challenging and/or impossible to substantiate — like, perhaps, what’s discussed during the private phone calls of a reclusive world leader and a very busy billionaire. Then you plant the story somewhere in the media.
Don’t automatically blame the journalist who breaks the story, by the way. His source could be a government official with all the credentials in the world. (In certain situations, the journalist would be derelict in his duties if he didn’t tell the world.)
Of course, if you’re an unethical government official, that gives you an enormous amount of power.
But what kind of story should we create? Here, content and positioning are critical.
It’s gotta be something that casts your enemy in a negative light, but you can’t accuse him of anything outright illegal. Nothing too outlandish. If it’s just an “accusation made, accusation denied” kind of deal, the shelf-life is too short. And anything outlandishly fabulist is too easy to dismiss. […]
— Read More: pjmedia.com
