I read a good comment at Michael J. Totten's blog yesterday - interesting from an IO perspective. Totten wrote a brief entry about the July 15 crash of an Iranian airliner that killed 168. A few press outlets started reporting that the crash was due to explosions caused by explosives being smuggled to Hezbollah by the IRGC.

In response to that post, a commenter had the following to add...

The question is, is the report accurate or not? ... it sound exactly like something the Revolutionary government would do to bolster Hezbollah - but, this is already a third hand report from a newspaper based in a different country... I can believe the parties involved would do that, but the reason I'm raising this point is because it's damaging to be wrong about such a charge. If this current report is wrong, but a similar issue of weapons smuggling is ever raised in the future, all Iran and Hezbollah would do to raise a partially credible defense - or to deflect part of the issue by turning back onto the accuser - would be to raise the previous "false" allegation as proof that the world is "out to get them"... Erroneous reporting can lead to a "boy who cried wolf" situation.

- commenter using the screen name of "ElMondo"
That concern applies both to accusations against the enemy and to good news reports that later turn out to be false.