Journalist impersonators pitch major publications, raising fraud concerns

A writer discovered that someone had been using her name to pitch stories to editors and publish work under her byline. The impersonation raises concerns about fraud and the damage it could do to journalists’ reputations and relationships with publishers.

The impersonator approached editors at Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Health and Science, and a New York Post article carrying the writer’s name was later removed. A separate impersonator used a former colleague’s identity to secure a Science commission and about $1,000; investigators found a matching pattern in the two impersonators’ email recovery addresses. The writer suspects AI may have helped with some pitches, but the motive remains unclear.