A fake press release put our college in an AI-generated story

I walked into work one day last week anticipating a fairly standard Thursday in the office. Perhaps this was my downfall. About halfway through the morning, I read an email and had to quite quickly put my coffee back down on the desk.

I’d been forwarded a press release from a media contact, with a message essentially along the lines of “is this you?” It had Nottingham College in the headline and peppered throughout the copy, which was being pitched to journalists and only loosely attributed to a client based in the US that was not linked to education.

The story itself isn’t especially relevant – though it wasn’t exactly glowing with praise – but what struck me was that this had come completely out of the blue.

Usually, myself or our PR leads work really closely with partners to fact-check and provide comment if we are mentioned in another organisation’s news release, even if the angle is negative. It’s the done thing to add legitimacy to any story while maintaining positive stakeholder relations. In previous roles heading up PR and communications teams, both in private sector agencies and in the charity sector, I had found it pretty standard practice; approvals are sacrosanct regardless of industry.

Upon closer inspection, it transpired that in this instance, the individual sending the email doesn’t exist. Nor does the ‘agency’ ‘she’ purports to work for, nor does the ‘client’ ‘she’ is requesting a back link for. Even the quoted ‘expert’ in the release doesn’t appear to exist. Or if she does, she’s a really busy woman working for at least 16 different organisations with a similar number of job titles.

The phenomenon of AI-powered PR has been a subject of interest for the Press Gazette for several months, which is maintaining a tracker of publications which have fallen for such antics. It makes for sombre reading, and the list of certified examples is long.

I still cannot fathom the exact purpose of this particular campaign. It appears to be a link-building effort but the destination is just a website full of links out elsewhere. Maybe it’s a wild way to generate clicks and advertising revenue; it’s certainly not an organisation with a genuine purpose, like an FE college.

All I know is that had the story been used, its impact could have been significant in how we appear in AI-powered search. If legitimate press outlets had taken the press release as genuine and covered it, our reputation would have been influenced by this false narrative.

It cannot be underestimated how potentially damning the impact of this type of activity could be, not only on our organisations’ reputation, but then subsequently what this means for our students looking to trust us with their future goals and aspirations.

We have a huge responsibility to young people. Choosing a qualification and then a place to study is often not a quick ‘purchase’ but a considered decision over many months and even years. For this to be undermined by AI, in an attempt to boost web traffic for an irrelevant source which has no bearing on the futures of our local young people, is irresponsible and immoral.

Perhaps the wildest thing of it all is how I wouldn’t have even known this was going on, had our relationships with the local media not been as good as they are. It troubles me to think this could happen far more frequently in the future, unbeknownst to any of us until it’s too late.

We keep a keen eye on our media coverage, whether they are mentions generated by our own stories or citations elsewhere. But the idea of having to expand this monitoring to consider false citations, written by machines, adding no value or truth or context… It feels like a game we’re playing that we haven’t signed up to.

What a waste of time when our efforts should be amplifying the authentic and inspirational stories of our students who are doing great things on their own.

I was at a bit of a loss yesterday as to what to do about it. After I’d calmed down, unable to contact the named individual, PR agency or client (probably lucky for them), I posted about the experience on LinkedIn and it blew up with incredulity.

And then we started the “well what do we do about this?” conversation.

If our media strategy must now factor in reputational impact entirely orchestrated by machines, I will have to lie down in a dark room temporarily. Then, the best course of action I’ll be following goes like this:

• Continue to have good relations with local media. People to people, with trust, open conversation and two-way understanding to give journalists what they need in a format that works best for them. It also helped us find out about unscrupulous goings on like this.
• Emphasise the importance of visible PR leads. Colleagues working in press / media engagement need to be known both internally but externally as well, as trusted sources of news and stories.
• Ramp up our media monitoring. We unfortunately cannot snoop in journalists’ inboxes, but we can set up alerts to track if any rogue stories get through the newsrooms and out into the public domain.
• Fight misinformation with accuracy and positivity. Prioritise sharing stories that people (and AI powered search!) value, about our students, overcoming adversity, achievements and impact we having in our communities.
• Add AI-generated press activity to our organisations’ risk registers and deliver targeted media training to key spokespeople who can articulately and authentically rebuff any whiff of misinformation.

It’s an evolving picture and dare I say in a week or month’s time this bizarre situation may be happening more, or differently. I welcome more suggestions and experiences on a postcard. Just please don’t ask AI to come up with the answers first.