Rupert Murdoch purchased a few "rag" periodicals in England and other countries. These were purveyors of such far fetched yarns that no one even considered them as "journalism". He then ran stories in them that he wanted to spread in the US. By giving his talking heads at Fox a "source" for the propaganda they spewed on cue he made the stories appear more credible and offered plausible deniability for any accountability.