Episode #21
19. Finding the Humans Among the Fakes with Rob Waugh
What happens when a journalist can no longer assume the expert pitching them actually exists? Rob Waugh has spent nearly 30 years writing about technology and science. More recently, his investigations for Press Gazette have taken him into a much stranger part of the internet: fake experts, fake journalists, AI-generated content and businesses making serious money by getting invented people into genuine news coverage. One investigation began when Rob received commentary from a supposed psychologist called Barbara Santini. Something didn't feel right. He started checking and concluded that she wasn't real. By that point, "Barbara" had appeared around 120 times in British media, including the BBC, Guardian, Mail, Mirror and Express. Rob says the entire operation was designed to secure links and improve a commercial website's Google ranking. And she wasn't alone. Rob went on to investigate fake driving experts, skincare experts, lottery winners, a royal cleaner and a gardener who he says appeared around 170 times in British media despite apparently not existing. We talk about how it happened, the pressure inside modern newsrooms and why AI has made producing this material dramatically cheaper. There's also a bigger question for PR. The people behind many of these operations aren't traditional PR practitioners, but they're using PR techniques. Rob believes the industry has an opportunity to respond by making genuine expertise, proper research and professional standards a point of difference. And Rob isn't anti-AI. He uses it. He thinks it can be great for ideation. His concern is what happens when we use it to flatten our writing, thinking and personalities into an average of everything that already exists. His advice for the future is considerably more human: "Be weird, be eccentric, follow your nose, just be yourself." In this episode: Rob's accidental route into journalism Nearly 30 years covering technological change MiniDiscs, BlackBerrys and the technologies that didn't quite win Why convenience usually wins How a request for expert commentary uncovered a fake psychologist The commercial industry behind fake experts How invented experts ended up across major British media Fake gardeners, royal cleaners and journalists Why newsroom pressures make verification harder How AI has dramatically reduced the cost of producing fake content What journalists can look for when checking whether someone is real Whether audiences will eventually care if an influencer or expert exists AI-generated PR and what journalists think when they receive it Why the PR industry has an opportunity to raise its standards What AI is genuinely useful for Why AI can push writing towards the average The growing value of eccentricity, judgement and individuality Why being human could become your biggest advantage
