I mean, that's not a trick. That's totally legitimate. Obviously it means there's a chain of trust here - if Forbes is incorrect, then articles that cite it will also be incorrect. But that's the same as when citing an original paper.
(Obviously there is some difference - two different takes on the same original source are better than one take on a source, and another take on the first take - but it's not invalid or wrong to do this IMO.)
I'm sure there is often a case of incompetence at play... however, I'm also sure there is often an amount of dishonesty to say the least and outright evil at worst when news organizations do this.
Another problem is not understanding the differences that statistics play in terms of how those statistics are gathered (controlled experiment vs epidemiological study for example).
(Obviously there is some difference - two different takes on the same original source are better than one take on a source, and another take on the first take - but it's not invalid or wrong to do this IMO.)