There was a time in recent memory when I thought that media would create almost perfect information, a condition that exists in theoretical economics that makes markets work. However, the more tweets and RSS feeds I read, the more I realise that there is more opportunity to create misinformation than ever before.

As editor of the business news site for yacht racing – yachtracing.biz, I am caught up in a scary trend. The hunger for content by some publishers is so voracious that they have stopped performing any editorial function at all, in favour of lazy, cut and paste practices.

The result is an opportunity for savvy, communications people to reinvent history and flog everything from the America’s Cup to garden centres.

So if you want to create facts using lazy bloggers and other so-called journalists, here is a step by step guide.

1. Create a press release.

Make sure it is full of hyperbole and facts that are hard to verify. Something like: “the largest technology fair in the world.” (This can later be amended to “largest conference of its kind in the world” if you get called out.)

2. Push the press release onto as many platforms as you can…

But make sure you focus on small content providers and social media. Twitter is best because it is only 140 characters and people will re-tweet the link you send without reading the article. This way, someone ‘influential’ will accidentally give the information some credibility. If you concentrate on a niche, then you will know you have done well when 90% of the RSS subject lines are your headline – unchanged from the way you released it.

3. Get credibility

Once the story is seeded on hundreds of little blogs and Twitter feeds and Facebook likes, call up a semi-respectable, traditional news outlet. A great one to try is a ‘local’ or ‘regional’ offshoot of a larger brand, like BBC South West Wales. This allows you to show others that a ‘proper’ news outlet has reported a ‘fact’ which now can’t be questioned.

4. Re-Invest

Now that your hyperbolic PR claim is a fact, repeat step 2. Get as many people as you can to Digg, Tweet, Like, stumbleupon and share the trusted source of your information. You could also now add a Wikipedia entry with a great source, so that no-one can challenge you.

How to deal with those rare, irritating beasts – journalists

In most cases, the steps above should be enough to ensure that your version of events is the one that captures the interest of the Twitterati for at least 9 or 10 seconds before someone else comes up with a better trending hashtag. But sometimes, someone might call ‘Bullshit’ and ask you to clarify or verify your position. Don’t Panic.

There are a few strategies to deal with self-appointed truth seekers.

The most obvious thing to do is to ignore them. Most will have a Klout score of less than 30 and acknowledging they are there just makes more people look in your direction. Other strategies include various forms flattery and ego fluffing, or if they are really good, you can bring them onto your side – perhaps even pay them to make up and distribute facts on your behalf.

Follow these rules and you can make the most of the total absence of fact checking and if you are lucky you will even get a few inbound links.