A long-running Wikipedia hoax and the problem of circular reporting

This is similar to (if not the same as?) the concept of "Trading up the chain" [1], whereby someone writes or plants a story in a smaller or less reputable medium with the hopes of getting it quoted and provided legitmacy by a more credible outlet. Ryan Holiday's book Trust Me I'm Lying talks about using this extensively, especially around some of the marketing he did with American Apparel and Tucker Max.

You start to see it everywhere once you know how to spot it, and it's (not surprisingly) extremely common to find in outlets that rely heavily on cranking out as many posts per hour as possible but someone still have brand equity (Forbes, Business Insider, Fast Company, any random crappy popular LinkedIn blog).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_up_the_chain