Wow. That article about paid crowds, and the impact on public discourse. Extracts below but it's worth reading the whole thing. 
The 'hire a crowd' business operates openly and makes journalism even more difficult
amp.poynter.org/news/hire-crowd-business-operates-openly-and-makes-journalism-even-more-difficult?__twitter_impression=true
The last thing I want to do with this article is to give oxygen to conspiracy nuts and hoaxsters who claim mass shootings and terrorist attacks are the work of crisis actors and "fake flag" operations.
But in New Orleans, paid actors disrupted a city council vote that will affect every person in that community who pays an electric bill. The Lens, an IRE award-winning non-profit investigative newsroom, found that the supporters were paid actors hired from a Los Angeles-based firm called "Crowds on Demand."
"At least four of the people in orange shirts were professional actors. One actor said he recognized 10 to 15 others who work in the local film industry," Lens reporter Michael Isaac Stein writes. "They were paid $60 each time they wore the orange shirts to meetings in October and February. Some got $200 for a 'speaking role,' which required them to deliver a pre-written speech, according to interviews with the actors and screenshots of Facebook messages provided to The Lens."
One of the demonstrators, Keith Keough, said he was paid to clap, "every time someone said something against wind and solar power."
[...]
[Rothbart] interviewed Adam Swart about the demand for fake crowds:
Crowds on Demand, he says, serves several clients a week, sometimes a day — most in L.A., San Francisco, and New York but an increasing number in smaller cities like Nashville, Charlotte, and Minneapolis. When people inquire about a potential event, Adam guides them through the possibilities and the approximate costs: $600 for fake paparazzi at a birthday dinner; $3,000 for a flash mob dancing, chanting, and handing out fliers as a PR stunt; $10,000 for a weeklong political demonstration; $25,000 to $50,000 for a prolonged campaign of protests. According to Adam, protests have become the company’s growth sector, and just as with advertising, repeat impressions are key. “When the targets of our actions see that we’re going to be back, day after day, they get really scared,” he says. “We’re in it for the long haul, and the problem’s not going to go away on its own.”
"When I was around him his phone was ringing nonstop," Rothbart said. "I think what he was doing is effective, it works, because people do trust it when they see crowds."
[...]
The Lens' Michael Stein said he worries that this incident may bog down important public debates in the future.
"Mostly, the people who show up and get involved in public issues are real grassroots movements. But it could be that in the future when you do not agree with what somebody is saying people will say 'who are those people? They are not real, they are not even from New Orleans, maybe they are just paid actors,'" he said. "This could be a reason to ignore the opposition, the voices you do not agree with."
[...]
Rothbart, the reporter who landed the job inside Crowds on Demand said his experience makes him reconsider how journalists always feel a need to "cover both sides" of a story.
"If there is some event where people are for something and protestors show up the media's rightful instinct is to talk to both sides. And on the news, the opponents might command half the story," he said.
But what if the opponents are not really opponents at all, but people who are just hired to be opponents?
"The takeaway for me," Rothbart said, "is not to distrust the media but to distrust the crowds."
And, importantly, go to the meetings. As newsrooms shrink, in-person reporting gives way to social media videos of meetings standing in as our witness. This story unraveled because journalists spotted the unfolding story with their own eyes.