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Circular reporting, or false confirmation, is a situation in
source criticism Source criticism (or information evaluation) is the process of evaluating an information source, i.e.: a document, a person, a speech, a fingerprint, a photo, an observation, or anything used in order to obtain knowledge. In relation to a given p ...
where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in reality comes from only one source. In many cases, the problem happens mistakenly through sloppy reporting or intelligence-gathering. However, the situation can also be intentionally contrived by the source or reporter as a way of reinforcing the widespread belief in its information. This problem occurs in a variety of fields, including
intelligence gathering This is a list of intelligence gathering disciplines. HUMINT Human intelligence (HUMINT) are gathered from a person in the location in question. Sources can include the following: * Advisors or foreign internal defense (FID) personnel wor ...
, journalism, and scholarly research. It is of particular concern in
military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from ...
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. It is also a problem in journalism and the development of conspiracy theories, in which the primary goal of a source spreading unlikely or hard-to-believe information is to make it appear to be widely known. The case of the 2002 Niger uranium forgeries was a classic instance of circular reporting by intelligence agencies.


Examples of circular reporting


''Roots''

Author
Alex Haley Alexander Murray Palmer Haley (August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992) was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book '' Roots: The Saga of an American Family.'' ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and ...
grew up hearing the oral history that his family's first ancestor to enter the United States was a young man named Kunta Kinte, who lived near the Kamby Bolongo, or Gambia River, and was kidnapped into slavery when out gathering wood. As an adult, Haley researched his family genealogy for what would become the 1976 novel '' Roots: The Saga of an American Family'', and he traveled to the Gambia in an attempt to confirm the family history of Kinte. Haley told the story of Kinte to a seminar of Gambian tribal experts, who searched for a griot—an oral historian—who might be able to confirm the story. Ultimately, Haley met a man named Kebba Fofana in the town of Juffure who was able to relate a story of Kunta Kinte that was strikingly similar to Haley's lifelong family history, an apparent confirmation that grounded Haley's novel (as well as the landmark 1977 miniseries adapted from the novel). After publication, however, it was discovered that griot oral histories were not reliable for dates before the 19th century, that Fofana was not a true griot, and that Fofana's confirmation of Haley's history was ultimately a retelling of the story Haley himself told Gambian experts.MacDonald, Edgar. "A Twig Atop Running Water -- Griot History," ''Virginia Genealogical Society Newsletter'', July/August, 1991.''The Roots of Alex Haley''. Documentary. Directed by James Kent.
BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
Bookmark, 1996.


Iraq War

In 2001, the Niger uranium forgeries, documents initially released by SISMI (the former military intelligence agency of Italy), seemed to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase yellowcake uranium powder from Niger during the
Iraq disarmament crisis The Iraq disarmament crisis was claimed as one of primary issues that led to the multinational invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003. Since the 1980s, Iraq was widely assumed to have been producing and extensively running the programs of biologi ...
. They were referenced by other intelligence agencies to convince their governments or public that such a purchase had taken place. In 2014, the Chairman of the US Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq told NBC's Tim Russert that a single informant, '
Curveball In baseball and softball, the curveball is a type of pitch thrown with a characteristic grip and hand movement that imparts forward spin to the ball, causing it to dive as it approaches the plate. Varieties of curveball include the 12–6 curve ...
' "had really provided 98 percent of the assessment as to whether or not the Iraqis had a biological weapon." This was in despite the fact that "nobody inside the U.S. government had ever actually spoken to the informant—except or a singlePentagon analyst, who concluded the man was an alcoholic and utterly useless as a source."


Other examples

In early 2012, a TV Tropes user named Tunafish claimed that a bug existed in ''
Civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...
'' that caused Gandhi to be much more aggressive. Tunafish did not provide any proof. The repetition of this false information led to the " Nuclear Gandhi" internet meme. In 2018, Shehroze Chaudhry was identified as an active member of the
Islamic State An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ' ...
who participated in the killing of several individuals, through reporting involving a '' The New York Times'' podcast, among others. The podcast and other outlets referenced blog posts authored by Chaudhry starting in 2016. The podcast was taken by government officials and others as evidence of the crime; however, the original posts were unverified and later renounced by the author.


Circular reporting on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is sometimes criticized for being used as a source of circular reporting, particularly a variant where an unsourced claim in a Wikipedia article is repeated by a reliable source, often without citing the article; which is then added as a source to the claim on Wikipedia.


History of citogenesis

The first recorded use of the term citogenesis to describe this phenomenon was in November 2011, when Randall Munroe used it in an '' xkcd'' comic strip. The neologism is attributed as being a
homophonic In music, homophony (;, Greek: ὁμόφωνος, ''homóphōnos'', from ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and φωνή, ''phōnē'', "sound, tone") is a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh ...
wordplay on '
cytogenesis Evolution of cells refers to the evolutionary origin and subsequent evolutionary development of cells. Cells first emerged at least 3.8 billion years agoSchopf, JW, Kudryavtsev, AB, Czaja, AD, and Tripathi, AB. (2007). ''Evidence of Archean l ...
', the formation, development and variation of
biological cells The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of life forms. Every cell consists of a cytoplasm enclosed within a membrane, and contains many biomolecules such as proteins, DNA and RNA, as well as many small molecules of nutrients an ...
. An article in the magazine '' Slate'' referenced the four-step process described in the comic, to raise awareness about the risks of Wikipedia-mediated citogenesis. This type of circular reporting has been described as particularly hard-to-catch because of the speed of revisions of modern webpages, and the lack of "as of" timestamps in citations and "last updated" timestamps on pages online. Inspired by the comic, Wikipedia editors have since maintained an internal list of citogenesis incidents to monitor its prevalence. Wikipedia advises researchers and journalists to be wary of, and generally avoid, using Wikipedia as a direct source, and to focus instead on verifiable information found in an article's cited references. Researchers and Wikipedians alike are advised to note the retrieved-on date of any web citation, to support identification of the earliest source of a claim.


Examples on Wikipedia

Prominent examples of false claims that were propagated on Wikipedia and in news sources because of circular reporting: *2007: Wikipedia and '' The Independent'' propagated the false information that comedian Sacha Baron Cohen had worked at Goldman Sachs. * 2008: A student arbitrarily added, "also known as....Brazilian Aardvarks"
/span> to the article on the
coati Coatis, also known as coatimundis (), are members of the family Procyonidae in the genera ''Nasua'' and ''Nasuella''. They are diurnal mammals native to South America, Central America, Mexico, and the southwestern United States. The name ...
, leading to subsequent commentary on the mammal that mentioned this nickname. Outlets repeating the nickname included ''The Independent'', the '' Daily Express'', the '' Metro'', '' The Daily Telegraph'', the '' Daily Mail'', a book published by the University of Chicago, and a scholarly work published by the University of Cambridge. * 2009: The middle name "Wilhelm" was falsely added into
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Buhl-Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg (born 5 December 1971), known professionally as Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, is a German businessman and politician of the Christian Soc ...
's name. This was propagated by a raft of publications, including German and international press. *2009: An incorrect release year of 1991 was added to the Wikipedia article of the
Casio F-91W The Casio F-91W is a digital watch manufactured by Japanese electronics company Casio. Introduced in 1989 as a successor of the F-87W, it is popular for its low price and long battery life. As of 2011, annual production of the watch is 3 mil ...
watch. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
repeated this in a 2011 article. Communication with primary sources repeatedly confirmed a 1989 release year, but as a reliable secondary source, the BBC's use of 1991 made the misinformation difficult to remove. In 2019,
KSNV KSNV (channel 3) is a television station in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside dual CW/MyNetworkTV affiliate KVCW (channel 33). Both stations share studios on Foremaster Lan ...
cited this incident as another example of citogenesis. The correct year was only restored after that review, with the KSNV article becoming cited in the article to support restoring the 1989 release date. *2014: A statement was anonymously added to the Wikipedia page on UK comedian
Dave Gorman David James Gorman (born 2 March 1971) is an English comedian, presenter, and writer. Gorman began his career writing for comedy series such as '' The Mrs Merton Show'' (1993–1998) and ''The Fast Show'' (1994–1997), and later garnered a ...
stating that he had "taken a career break for a sponsored hitchhike around the Pacific Rim countries". When this was questioned, an article published at a later date (September 2014) in ''
The Northern Echo ''The Northern Echo'' is a regional daily morning newspaper based in the town of Darlington in North East England, serving mainly southern County Durham and northern Yorkshire. The paper covers national as well as regional news. In 2007, its the ...
'', a daily regional newspaper in
North East England North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the region; combined authority, unitary authority ...
was cited as evidence. Gorman repudiated the claim in an episode of his UK television show '' Modern Life Is Goodish'' (first broadcast 22 November 2016). *2022: A hoax article about Alan MacMasters, purported inventor of the
toaster A toaster is a small electric appliance that uses radiant heat to brown sliced bread into toast. Types Pop-up toaster In pop-up or automatic toasters, a single vertical piece of bread is dropped into a slot on the top of the toaster ...
, was discovered to have been picked up in news media later used as citations.


See also

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Circular reporting Causal fallacies Communication of falsehoods Criticism of journalism Fake news Literary criticism Philosophical logic