The rise of fake case studies and press releases (and what this means for PRs)
Journalists are having a dire enough time dealing with all the perks of the job – low pay, tighter budgets, titles going under (I jest, of course) - and now we’re having to deal with fake case studies and AI-drenched press releases increasingly making their way into our inboxes.
A few months ago I posted on X that I was looking for case studies of people using AI for dating and relationships. It was a tough one as let’s just say people weren’t exactly forthcoming on the subject. One “person” sent me a DM on the platform explaining how they were using it for dating and relationship advice. Perfect, I thought.
“What number can I contact you on?”
She replied with her email.
“I’ll need to set up a phone interview. Are you on WhatsApp?” [I thought she lived overseas].
“Is it OK if we do the interview through email?” she asked.
“Can I check why a phone call doesn’t work? Or we can do this through Zoom?”
She didn’t respond. There wasn’t anything about her online and I have no idea who/what was behind the account.
But it made me realise how now we face an increasing battle against fake people and bots. If I had been less diligent, I could have accepted some no doubt AI-generated fake response. And just to throw out there: I have accepted written comment plenty of times before from very verified/trusted PRs/business owners/press officers, but the increased emergence of fake bots/AI creates an even tougher working environment, especially for journalists under immense pressure.
Fake stories are increasingly unfolding. Take a recent story about a so-called former cleaner for the Royal Family, for example. Many journalists received a press release from a PR agency on top tips on cleaning from a supposedly ex Royal Family employee. But the Royal Family’s press team have no recollection of such a person. The articles, featured in places such as The Times and The Sun, were later pulled when Press Gazette started raising questions.
Rob Waugh, a journalist for Press Gazette, which has stepped up its reporting this year, has recently covered this trend. In a nutshell, Waugh says reporters are increasingly seeing such emails land in their inbox. Of course, you can mock the journalists who ran these stories, but the lapse is also down to the conditions in which they’re under (some are told to bash out large quantities of stories per day), which has led to this mess.
Waugh has listed 10 ways to tell a press release might be AI-generated:
Capitalised headlines
Short sentences
‘GPT formatting’ with lots of bolded phrases
Catchy but empty bullet points
No contact number
Email addresses which bounce
Sentences which list three things
Paranoid and fear-inducing headlines: ‘The plumbing mistake that could cost you £1m’
Extremely short sentences
Tables and bullet points within the release.
The above warning signs might be something you want to consider when you’re next writing a press release. Not to say that if you do one of these that journalists will block you, but perhaps several might make a journalist wary and delete the email (though I’d say emails that bounceback are a dead giveaway unless there’s a response that says that PR has left the organisation).