New York Post Removes Fake Linda Geddes Article as Fraudster Nets About $1,000 Posing as Journalists
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Oct 17
New York Post Removes Fake Linda Geddes Article as Fraudster Nets About $1,000 Posing as Journalists
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Oct 17
Summary
A New York Post article falsely published under Linda Geddes’s byline was removed after she discovered a fraudster had been pitching and writing as her using a fake email account.
About $1,000 was paid for a separate article published by Science under the name of journalist Caroline Williams, and Geddes later linked the two impersonation campaigns through the same masked recovery email pattern.
A third apparent target, Sara Novak, was tied to the same recovery address, while editors said some pitches showed AI-assisted writing and recycled quotes lifted from earlier published work.
Publishers are tightening checks in response: Science now screens pitches with AI detectors and requires Zoom calls for new writers, while Nature editors said the scam could make them less likely to commission unfamiliar freelancers.
The case highlights a wider rise in identity fraud across publishing and hiring, where experts say generative AI, voice cloning and deepfakes are making impersonation faster, cheaper and harder to detect.