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Pierre Salinger is a former White House press secretary to President John F. Kennedy and 'ABC News' journalist. Salinger was informed by a French Intelligence source that the US Navy accidentally shot down TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996. Salinger then relayed a report known to be written by Captain Richard Russell, a retired 747 pilot and former crash investigator, to the media on November 8, 1996. The report said Flight 800 was a victim of friendly fire.
According to Captain Russell's affidavit filed in a lawsuit against the government, his report was based on information relayed to him by a contact who had just attended a high-level briefing on the crash. While no poll has been taken, it's likely that most people believe Russell's report is erroneous and that Salinger was duped by it.
Because Pierre Salinger believed his French Intelligence contact, Captain Russell, and witnesses who reported a missile, he believed anything posted on the Internet -- hence the "Pierre Salinger syndrome". The term is widely attributed to Moira Gunn who said in a Wired magazine interview (July 1997), "Just because it's online doesn't make it true. We're heading toward something called the Pierre Salinger syndrome, which is endemic to people who have not hung around the new technology and are fooled by its shortfalls."