A Toronto magazine editor’s routine fact-check has exposed what appears to be an elaborate fraud spanning dozens of publications worldwide. The case reveals how artificial intelligence tools have made fabricating journalism remarkably easy.
Nicholas Hune-Brown reports for The Local about his discovery of a writer named Victoria Goldiee, whose work contained fabricated quotes, invented sources and likely AI-generated content. Four major publications have now removed her articles.
The investigation began when Hune-Brown received a pitch about healthcare privatization in September. The proposal impressed him with its detailed reporting and the writer’s credentials at prestigious outlets including The Globe and Mail and The Walrus. But when he contacted sources Goldiee claimed to have interviewed, none had spoken with her.
Goldiee’s portfolio included dozens of bylines across publications like The Guardian, Dwell, Business Insider and Vogue Philippines. Hune-Brown systematically contacted people quoted in her stories. Professor Juliet Pinto from Pennsylvania State University confirmed she never spoke with Goldiee about climate memes for Outrider. Designer Young Huh denied giving quotes for a Dwell home design article. A representative for architect Barbara Bestor said they “definitely did not talk to her.”
The articles displayed characteristic signs of AI generation. They mixed invented anecdotes from non-existent people with quotes attributed to real experts who said things that sounded plausible but were never actually said. “The quotation attributed to me is the sort of thing I might say,” wrote Professor Elaine Sutherland from the University of Stirling, who was quoted in a story she never contributed to.
During a phone interview, Goldiee defended her work but hung up when confronted with evidence that her sources denied speaking with her. She had claimed to live in Toronto, work in London, be based in Nigeria, and write as an American, depending on the publication.
After the phone call, Goldiee’s online portfolio vanished. The Guardian removed her October essay with a note saying it was “removed pending review.” Dwell retracted her article for not meeting editorial standards. The Journal of the Law Society of Scotland apologized to readers, with editor Joshua King writing that the quotes “are likely to be fabricated.”
Hune-Brown sees the case as symptomatic of a degraded media environment. Publications with prestigious names operate with skeletal staff, fact-checkers have been eliminated, and AI tools make fabrication trivially easy. “Freelance journalism in 2025 is an incredibly difficult place to build a career,” he writes. “But, it turns out, it’s a decent enough arena for a scam.”
The Goldiee case is not isolated. This summer, the Chicago Sun-Times published an AI-generated reading list featuring non-existent books. Business Insider quietly removed at least 34 essays under 13 different bylines after similar discoveries. Toronto publication The Grind was forced to postpone an issue after receiving AI-generated stories about fictional places.
The scandal has left editors facing a dilemma. After investigating Goldiee, Hune-Brown returned to his inbox of pitches from aspiring writers. “Looking at them now, though, all I could see was the synthetic sheen of artificial intelligence,” he writes. Promising young writers may be buried in the submissions, but the cost of verification has become prohibitive.
