If I recall, the term came about after the Warren Commission report that was basically “fictional” on the murder of JFK, the term coined by the CIA.
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that.
I have long since thought that the term is a psychological operation conducted on the population to condition a response.
The response being a total shutdown of the idea being presented for consideration and the person delivering it.
This serves two purposes.
#1 is the obvious one, it allows the “media” to instantly shut down an inconvenient person with an idea.
#2 It causes people with something to lose to self censor (think Hannity, Levin, Limbaugh).
But of course that’s just a theory.