Factoid

While it has come to mean "a small fact" or "snippet of the information", the word "factoid" (coined by [Norman Mailer]? in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe) originally had a different and more subtle meaning. The original meaning was a wholly spurious "fact" invented to create or prolong public exposure or to manipulate public opinion. Mailer himself described a factoid as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper".