Reporter for media A writes something conjectural with a lot of "mays, mights, coulds, shoulds, woulds, ifs, etc."
Reporter for media B writes something and references reporter for media A as the source.
Reporter for media C writes something and validates the source as "in published reports." Except that step 1 should read, "Reporter for media A gets a fax from some lobbying group, containing a lot of 'mays, mights, coulds, shoulds, woulds, ifs, etc.'"