December 16, 2011: Iran runs a very successful fake news operation. Anti-American stories are invented, distributed as real news, and used as effective anti-U.S. (and anti-West) propaganda. It doesn't really matter if the Iranian stories are investigated and found to be false. In the Moslem world and other anti-American nations like Russia, North Korea, and China anti-American lies are passed off as real and stay that way even if disproved.

For example, this year Iran put out a series of stories about a U.S. UAV campaign in Somalia. The Iranian TV outlet asserted that there were 56 such attacks over the last three months that killed 1,370 people, including many civilians. When other news outlets tried to follow up on the Iranian stories they could find no evidence. The Iranian news outlet (Press TV) had made it up. This same outfit was fined $150,000 by the British government for broadcasting fake news (on a non-Somalia story) in Britain.

This "Big Lie" technique ("tell a lie often and loudly enough and people will believe it") was not invented by the Islamic radicals, communists, or Nazis but has been around for a long time. With electronic news media it is simply easier to spread more lies faster and farther and more often.