> It was the very definition of propaganda: clearly biased, obviously wrong to anybody who has the slightest idea about finance and obviously working hard to push a foregone conclusion against an imagined enemy ("The Rich").
That repeats what a blog post on HN's front page said, but that doesn't make it true. It was the blog poster who didn't understand finance, as many on HN commented, and their argument was weak in many other ways. Also, the conclusion about ProPublica's motives has no evidence - even if the article is inaccurate in that way, there are many possible reasons why. It's an appeal to emotion when we start saying "the slightest idea", "obviously", and "imagined enemy", not to fact and reason.
Even the allegations don't necessarily fit the definition of propaganda; bias or even deceit are not necessarily propaganda.
Why are people so ready to believe that a carefully researched story, rich in evidence, is wrong and take at face value a ranting blog post, with no evidence or research, by some anonymous person?
The answer is, that is how propaganda works: An appeal to emotion, and many other tactics described in the OP, were in that blog post. That is killing our society, IMHO.
