I have an hypothesis that I believe predicts very accurately how information will be treated in this segment of the American political right-wing (hard to define, but Fox and the WSJ editorial page to the right-wing blogosphere to talk radio to it's many participants on social media). I invite you to test it out:
The NY Times is asking the wrong question; they implicitly acknowledge that it lacks predictive power: The accuracy of information does not predict if it will spread and be believed.
* Ideology predicts it. If information matches their ideology, they spread it and believe it. If not, they don't. I believe this is now taken to its extreme: Ideological compliance, not factual accuracy, determines 99% of 'truth'. No matter how factually unsound, they will believe ideologically 'true' information. And no matter how factually sound, they will deny and attack ideologically 'false' material. Consider climate change, as an easy example - factually undeniable but ideologically unsound. It's a full-fledged ideological movement, which seems an anachronism in this educated age, happening right under our noses..
I've been reading about Medieval philosoph, and I recognized the pattern. It's a per-Enlightenment approach, placing ideology (back then it was mainly religious dogma rather than political) ahead of reason as the test for truth. Note also the attacks on sources of factual credibility, such as serious journalists, intellectuals, academia, scientists, education in general, etc. Those sources provide factual accuracy, but ideological 'falsehoods'. Again, it's in some ways similar to what was experienced in the Enlightenment. Finally, note that leaders of this political group prove themselves not by knowledge, leadership, good decisions, etc., but by saying things that are both crazy by normal standards but acceptable by the ideology's standards - their and their followers priority is that they prove their commitment to the ideology.
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Finally a couple caveats: 1) In a way it might seem obvious because everyone tends to believe things that meet their preconceived notions, but this is far more extreme - usually accuracy does have a large influence on people, including probably most people reading this. 2) Yes, some people behave similarly on other parts of the political spectrum, but the reality is that in 2016 there is relatively very large and very powerful movement on the right - IMHO it just elected a President and has corrupted major U.S. institutions such as the FBI.