"Without evidence" and "if true"

 When the media uses the phrase "without evidence", it can mean a few things:

1. There might be evidence that just hasn't been made public yet, but we (the media) was to subvert the legal protocols and force officials to make it public, so we'll frame the story as fake until they do.
   
   
2. There is evidence, but we don't want the general populace to know about it, so we'll frame it as fake to deter people from looking it up and we'll work with Google and YouTube (which are the same company) to block the evidence from being made known.

If there really was no evidence, it would be a very short story, and likely won't even be given air-time. Many rumours are out there, but they don't make the news because there's no evidence (or not enough) to support it.

When the media uses the phrase "if true" (which they did to exhaustion with the impeachment of President Trump), it can mean:

1. There is no evidence for this, but we want it to be in your minds anyway, so we'll keep reporting on it and when evidence come out to the contrary, we'll fall back on, "Well, we did say 'if true' so we weren't presenting it as fact."

And that's about it. Because if there's no evidence, it would be a very short story and likely won't even be given air-time. (Am I repeating myself?!)

This is because the media know that many people watch their "news" and they know the power it can have. They use the power to change the minds of the people subtly by repeating the same things over and over again and then use the fact that "it's been in the news" as "proof" that the story is valid.

It's a fallacy. Don't fall for it.