There is a particular hush that falls over a club dining room when a man says something untrue with complete sincerity. It isn't the hush of scandal. It's closer to the hush of a church, because sincerity, like a well-cut dinner jacket, gets a certain respect no matter what it's wrapped around. That is misinformation in its natural habitat: unarmed & well-meaning. Nobody has lied. Everybody has simply been helpful. Civilisation, after all, has always been built more on helpfulness than on accuracy, and if the two seldom meet socially, no hostess should be blamed for it.
The other article comes in by a different door. It's announced. It has been rehearsed in a side room with the curtains drawn, and it arrives with its tie perfectly straight. Disinformation never mumbles. It knows exactly which way the candlelight falls and which guest has the Minister's ear. The other thing was ordered, fitted and paid for, often by people who don't believe a word of it and would be shocked to find anyone did, until they find it useful.
The old diplomatic service understood this with the calm of a man who has never had to carry his own luggage. A communiqué was rarely false, exactly. It was arranged. If the evening went badly, nobody had lied. The seating plan had simply been followed. The same art turns up in the regimental history that puts a retreat down as a "strategic consolidation," and in the company report where a fall in profits becomes "a period of measured recalibration." A man who has lost a fortune "has stepped back from the markets." A marriage that has fallen apart "has entered a quieter phase."
