From the Historical and Investigative article, "What is Conspiracy theory?"
(link to the full article at the bottom)

Some imaginable conspiracies have a self-supporting logical structure.

Imagine a conspiracy to make everybody believe that conspiracy theories are always nuts. To what end? So that those who want to look smart will be the first to deny the existence of the conspiracy. Or any other conspiracy. To make, in other words, every conspiracy invisible, by turning its categorical and universal denial into a proud mark of intelligence.

But could the conspiracy to make ‘conspiracy’ sound nuts succeed?

It already has.
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Dictionary companies produce their definitions by looking systematically at examples of mainstream published writing; the logic is that mainstream published writing is being read by many people, and therefore its uses of words cannot very well be idiosyncratic. So The New York Times has a huge effect on what dictionaries eventually decide is the definition of a term, because The New York Times is the most prestigious English-language mainstream print source. Through this channel, The New York Times again has a sizeable impact on common usage, because when ordinary people are in doubt about a word, they consult dictionaries.

The meanings of words have an effect on your mind, naturally, because most of your thinking is conducted with words. George Orwell once tried to explain this, but very few people really got it. The point is that if The New York Times has a huge effect on the meanings of English words, and you are an English speaker, then The New York Times is having a huge effect on your mind, whether or not you read the New York Times.

Now, let us move to the meaning of ‘conspiracy theory.’

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I leave you with this question. How to interpret the fact that The New York Times, which is supposed to be keeping an eye on government, tells us that ‘conspiracy theories’ are automatically incorrect?

Full article: http://www.hirhome.com/conspiracy.htm