Not inherently, except when it just destroys information. Let's say a couch is really light but made from good material, and has a design and colors I find very pretty, and it comes at a fair price, too. I might just call it "awesome" and be done with it, but that conveys nothing, and then when I am actually in awe, I have to talk about how something is "literally genuinely really awesome". Likewise, if propaganda "now means" propaganda one doesn't like, how does one call propaganda in general? I would guess "public relations", "public outreach", "engaging with the community", "influencing the narrative for a positive outcome", and a lot of others, but why not "propaganda"? I'm sure I use it in a purely negative meaning all the time myself, but I still can't see anything gained from that.
Propaganda has negative connotations under the presumption that the message is dishonest in some way. The original meaning was 'neutral', and in that sense more information is being provided by the modern term than the older one.
> The original meaning was 'neutral', and in that sense more information is being provided by the modern term than the older one.
The modern term comes fairly directly from a use in which it was positive, not neutral (though it was negative to outsiders of the group using it, which shaped the modern connotation.) Specifically, it comes from the old Latin name (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fidei, “Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith”) of what is now the “Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples” of the Roman Catholic Church.
