Earned media just got a credibility problem that no brand safety vendor currently screens for.
On September 3, 2026, British trade title Press Gazette published a second investigation into finance and cryptocurrency writers whose existence it could not confirm. Four more names joined the list. Reporter Rob Waugh’s original May 12, 2026 piece flagged four others responsible, between them, for more than 1,000 articles across upward of 30 outlets. Three months on, none of those writers had come forward.
What Press Gazette found
The four new names are Sadie Ann Williamson, Ralph Tkatchuk, Victor G Snyder and Daan Pepijn. Their bylines have appeared in Forbes, Entrepreneur, CIO, Information Age, The Next Web, Hacker Noon, VentureBeat and others.
According to the reporting, each shares a similar profile: thin online presence, few contact routes, and credentials that fall apart under checks. Williamson’s LinkedIn claimed Deloitte roles in Sydney and Auckland; Deloitte’s press office told Press Gazette it had no record of her. A claimed coaching stint at Auckland’s Ponsonby Rugby Club also drew a blank. Her consultancy’s listed Quay Street address sits in a retail area and does not appear on Google Maps.
Tkatchuk’s profile appeared automated, per the investigation, and his photo closely resembles an American IT professional offering home computer repair. Snyder’s LinkedIn has been deleted and his company site is down; the outfit, Boss Makers, reportedly ran for a decade yet has nine followers on X.
Press Gazette asked the publications that ran the work to verify the writers. None could. Hacker Noon and Information Age pulled articles after being contacted.
The PR thread
Both investigations connect several bylines to PR firms serving blockchain clients, named as Inbound Junction and MarketAcross. Williamson’s work was cited by Inbound Junction as an example of earned media in a campaign for client Akeyless that the agency said produced 117 articles and three million impressions.
Tkatchuk was similarly cited around client Memcyco. A now-removed CIO piece, still visible via the Wayback Machine, showed him promoting Gladius, a token that raised $12.7 million via ICO in 2017, never launched, and never refunded investors.
MarketAcross managing partner Itai Elizur responded on the record, saying the firm works with hundreds of clients and thousands of contacts via news agencies, media brokers and platforms such as Haro and Whitepress. He said it does not employ journalists and its staff do not run any of the profiles cited, and pointed to ongoing civil proceedings against two former employees as context Press Gazette should weigh.
Why this matters for growth and PR teams
This is not the usual pink-slime story about fake local news sites. These bylines ran on real, established, high-traffic publications. The failure point is the author, not the venue.
That is exactly the layer nobody screens. Brand safety and suitability tooling from vendors like IAS and DoubleVerify classifies inventory by site-level and content signals. Neither asks whether a named human wrote the article. Your pre-bid stack cannot see it. Your PR dashboard certainly cannot.
And when agencies report success as “117 articles, three million impressions,” the incentive runs entirely toward placement volume, not authorship verification.
A quick due-diligence checklist
- Verify the writer, not just the outlet. A Forbes URL proves nothing about who typed it.
- Check employer claims directly. One email to a press office undid the Deloitte claim.
- Look at social depth, not follower count. Ten-year-old company, nine followers on X is a signal.
- Reverse image search headshots. Borrowed photos are a recurring marker.
- Ask your PR agency who wrote the placement and whether they can put you on a call with them.
- Change the KPI. Score coverage on verified authorship and referral quality, not raw impressions.
The takeaway
If your brand’s credibility is being built on third-party bylines, you are inheriting someone else’s verification standards. In crypto, fintech and any sector where launch-timed praise is valuable, assume that standard is lower than you think.
Two publishers have already deleted articles. Expect more editors to start asking freelancers for ID, and expect PR reporting to get a lot less impression-obsessed.
Source: PPC Land
