Circular reporting

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Two basic ways that circular reporting can happen. Dashed lines indicate sourcing that isn't visible to the final reviewer. In both cases, one original source (top) appears to the final reviewer (bottom) as two independent sources

In source criticism, circular reporting or false confirmation is a situation where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in fact is coming from only one source.[1][2] In most cases, the problem happens mistakenly through sloppy intelligence gathering practices, but in a few cases, the situation was believed to have been intentionally caused by the original source.[3]

This problem occurs in variety of fields, including intelligence gathering,[2] journalism, and scholarly research. It is of particular concern in military intelligence because the original source has a higher likelihood of wanting to pass on misinformation, and because the chain of reporting is more prone to being obscured.

Wikipedia is sometimes criticized for being used as a source of circular reporting.[4] Wikipedia advises all researchers and journalists to be wary of using Wikipedia as a direct source, and instead focus on verifiable information found in an article's cited references.

Specific examples

Relationship between Wikipedia and the press.svg

In the following examples, false claims were made due to circular reporting:

See also

External video
Mark Twain Underwood 1907.jpg
video icon How false news can spread - Noah Tavlin, TED-ED[9]

References

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  3. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Google Book search, retrieved on 23 July 2009.
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