I am in no way pushing back that the general public will fall for stupid obvious bullshit, that keeps happening and will always happen.

However, since I find it so fascinating I want to shine some light on your first example. Among historians and sociologists it’s widely accepted that the Orsen Wells “War of the Worlds” broadcast did not cause widespread panic as the over sensationalizing newspapers reported. Which was quite common for the essentially click bait reporting of the time. Sure some people probably did belive it was an invasion, but there wasn’t mass looting in the street and was a much tamer “outrage” from what most people today belive occurred.

Did sell a lot of papers tho.