New York · The Guardian Technology
Further digging showed that Fake Linda had also pitched a story to Science, unsuccessfully
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The Guardian donned their sleuthing cap and discovered a potential link between Fake Linda and Fake Caroline.
Key facts
- That person had convinced an editor at Science to commission and publish an article under Caroline’s name, receiving about $1,000 for it
- In April, Prof Eric Topol, of the Scripps Institute in California, discovered his name on a scientific paper he knew nothing
- The Society of Authors’ chief executive, Anna Ganley, said she personally received between five and 10 scam emails a day, supposedly from book festivals, literary agents, publishers and others
- The reporter has since identified a third science journalist, Sara Novak, with a potential link to Fake Linda and Fake Caroline
Summary
It started with an entirely ordinary interaction on LinkedIn. It was the latest in a string of increasingly bizarre events that had begun three weeks earlier, when a friend who works as an editor at the scientific journal Nature texted to ask whether the reporter would been pitching stories to one of her colleagues. It turned out that someone had been approaching Nature editors using their name and an email address that wasn’t mine, referencing articles the reporter would previously written to make their pitches more convincing. Further digging revealed that Fake Linda had also pitched a story to Science, unsuccessfully.