How Iran Played The American Media For Fools

A small Florida newspaper thought it had published a standard opinion article critiquing the Iran war. Weeks later, OpenAI identified its purported author as part of an Iranian influence operation using fake journalists and AI-assisted articles to infiltrate news outlets.

The Port St. Joe Star published the article “The cost of American power in the Iran War” on Sept. 22 under the byline Ervin B. Hoskins.

But according to a report released Thursday by OpenAI, Hoskins is a fake persona that was part of an “influence campaign” originating in Iran. Its operators used ChatGPT to “refine” English-language articles and tailor them to the submission requirements of targeted publications. 

“This persona’s bio claimed to be ‘an American freelance writer,’ but social media transparency settings located the accounts in Iran,” the report said. The Washington Post also reported that OpenAI’s image-verification tool identified the author photo as AI-generated. 

OpenAI said Hoskins was one of seven fake journalist personas used by the operation, which the company called “Bogus Bylines.” The operators used ChatGPT to refine articles about the U.S.-Iran conflict and generate pitches to editors.

OpenAI said the activity appeared. consistent with a commercial operator conducting a campaign for hire, but it could not identify who was behind it.

The operation also generated batches of social media comments that supported its messaging. Some were posted online within minutes of one another.

OpenAI identified almost 100 articles published or syndicated under the operation’s bylines across more than a dozen publications. The Washington Post reported that the campaign reached at least 20 news outlets.

“Using open-source investigation techniques, we identified almost 100 articles that had been published under one or other of the operators’ bylines,” the report stated. “These publications generally focused on international affairs, geopolitics, and events in the Middle East, sometimes from an antiwar or progressive point of view.”

The earliest article OpenAI identified was published in July 2025, and the frequency of publication increased after the U.S.-Iran war broke out earlier this year.

The Middle East Monitor published articles under several of the operation’s bylines, including Hoskins, Michael Harrison, Jenny Williams, and Alice Johnson. The site published at least 21 articles under bylines identified as fake, according to the Post.

While the operation’s social media comments attracted little engagement, its articles appeared in outlets with substantial followings, giving the campaign a potentially larger audience. One publication that carried the articles had “almost 2 million followers on Facebook, almost 355,000 followers on X, and over 544,000 on Instagram as of August 2026.”

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