Term: echo chamber

The echo chamber is a term coined to characterize the seeming confirmation of news reports and other information, when in fact only repetition has occurred.

The process works as follows:

• News source “A” publishes a report. The report may or may not be accurate to some degree.
• News sources “B”, “C”, “D”, and perhaps others, re-publish the original report without performing any fact checking, often adding their own interpretation or speculation without adding any independent confirmation.
• Consumers see the report as coming from four independent, presumably unrelated sources, and give that report and often the accompanying speculation significantly more credibility than it would deserve if recognized as having come from a single source.

In reality it is not four independently confirmed sources, but rather a single source published, or “echoed”, three or more additional times.

Sadly this type of “reporting” is rampant on the internet today.