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Planting false information in the news? It’s much easier than you think.

by Becket Adams, opinion contributor - 10/26/26 7:00 AM ET

by Becket Adams, opinion contributor - 10/26/26 7:00 AM ET

AP Photo/Altaf Qadri, File

It shouldn’t be this easy for false information to worm its way into mainstream news reporting. But it is.

Several news outlets and polling aggregators were embarrassed last week after a new polling firm, Wedgewood Polling, was revealed to be a hoax operation. The firm had produced dozens of fabricated voter surveys, many of which favored Democratic candidates.

Wedgewood now claims it was merely conducting a social experiment, to show how easily phony data can enter into election coverage.…