It appears that they started as idle tweets that were picked up by the foreign press only after they were referred to in a blog on the Journal du Dimanche's website.
The journal is a book Douglas referred to in Magnificent Obsession, and which he actually wrote ten years later as an overture to the best seller because of the significant number of people who wanted to know what the journal actually contained.
This is what the late Journal editorial page editor Robert Bartley referred to as the difference between ethics in business and the ethics business all the way back in 1987.