This sounds like a defense of "truthiness" to me. A position not defensible with facts is an indefensible position. If you look at the media you find those corners of the media with an atmosphere of truthiness are those that produce the most harmful positions.

"making stuff up" is worse than "constructing a biased argument"

Making up Dylan quotes seems a lot more benign than discouraging people from suing tobacco companies and saying Ritalin is safe.

Making up shameful quotes for a prominant politician seems a lot less benign than discouraging people from purchasing a competitor's product.

"I like to grab old women's tits from behind, they never know what's coming" laughed the mayoral candidate in a private moment last night. By the way, Coke is better than Pepsi.