Reach is building a whitelist of trusted PR agencies. What that means for you

When Reach plc's chief content officer David Higgerson sat down with us on our podcast PR in the Real World recently, he confirmed something that should concentrate minds across the communications industry. Reach is building a centralised database of trusted PR agencies. Journalists across the organisation are being asked to vouch for agencies they've worked with and trust. If you're on the list, your material moves through verification more quickly. If you're not, expect your quoted experts to face additional scrutiny, starting with whether they actually exist.

It's not a blacklist. Higgerson was clear about that. "I don't want to be, nor do I want Reach to be, the gatekeeper of what good PR looks like," he told us. Nobody has to pay to be on it. And he stressed that the journalist-PR relationship remains "as important today as it always has been."

But agencies that repeatedly supply misleading information will face consequences. And the direction of travel is unmistakable.

Why this has happened

The genesis is straightforward and worth understanding in Higgerson's own terms.

Press Gazette ran a series of investigations into fake experts being quoted across national media. The numbers were striking, over 1,000 articles attributed to non-existent or AI-enhanced experts, with more than 600 instances linked to a single company. One fictitious psychologist was quoted 100s of times before anyone established, she wasn't real.

Higgerson said the problem wasn't restricted to unethical operators. PR agencies that Reach works with regularly had been supplying fake experts without knowing it. They had sourced quotes and information in good faith. "The problem was almost two steps removed from us," he said.

That's worth considering further. The agencies weren't acting in bad faith. They had been duped by their own sources. And that's what has led to Reach's response whether like it or not.

Like me Higgerson started life in regional papers and he described the chain that is familiar to anyone in a newsroom. The reporter trusts their sources. The news editor trusts the reporter. The editor trusts the news editor. The reader trusts the outlet. That chain has always been there. What AI has done, he said, is "facilitate the ability" for someone to break it.

The old checks no longer work. As Higgerson put it: "It's not enough these days to check and see if somebody's got a LinkedIn profile because that can be faked. It's not enough to see if they've got a Facebook profile. And the lengths and depth that people will go to try and create the impression that somebody is real is what I find particularly egregious."

So Reach built new checks and introduced an extra tier of verification for anyone quoted as an expert in health or money matters. And journalists across the 1,800-strong UK team are encouraged to vouch for PR contacts they trust, turning the database into what Higgerson described as a crowdsourcing exercise built on real relationships.

What this means for the industry

The practical implications are significant.

If you have strong, established relationships with journalists at Reach titles, you're in good shape. Higgerson's message was clear: "If a PR agency, be that a big company or a small company, is worried about what it means not to be on the list, the solution is to have the relationship with a journalist in our organisation who's happy to vouch for them."

If you don't have those relationships, now is the time to build them. Not by mass-emailing newsdesks, but by doing what Higgerson described as the thing that makes a journalist want to work with you: having a great story to tell and thinking about how it helps Reach be "useful, memorable or reliable" to readers.

If you source quotes or case studies from third parties, you need to verify them yourself. Higgerson was blunt: agencies can no longer "rely on third parties to help you assess and build what you are trying to promote." The days of passing on a quote from a client's nominated expert without checking their credentials are over.

And if you think this is just a Reach initiative, think again. Reach is the UK's largest commercial publisher. What they do tends to set the direction for others. The CIPR and PRCA have already launched a joint campaign urging journalists to verify PR sources, directly in response to the Press Gazette investigations. The infrastructure of trust between our industry and the media is being rebuilt. Agencies that don't adapt will find themselves locked out.

The broader threat: from fake quotes to fake video

But the fake experts problem, serious as it is, is only the visible edge of something much bigger.

During our conversation, Higgerson made an observation that has stayed with me. He said that if Reach had received a video into the newsroom two years ago, they could largely take it at face value. Not anymore. "These days the first thing is you count the number of fingers on the people who are in it," he said. Then he added: "In 18 months' time it won't be a tell."

He pointed to the Southport riots, where fabricated video was being shared as genuine footage. "We are no longer just the first draft of history," he told us. "We're the front line when it comes to dis- and misinformation. And that tidal wave is only going to get worse."

The numbers confirm it. In February, the Home Office published a deepfake detection evaluation framework, developed in partnership with Microsoft. Eight million deepfakes were shared on content platforms in 2025, up from 500,000 in 2023.  

Detection is critical work, and it's rightly being led by government and the technology companies. But for communications professionals, the question that matters is different: what happens when a deepfake targets your organisation and you have to respond?

That's not an IT problem. It's a crisis communications problem. IT handles detection and containment. Legal handles reporting and evidence preservation. But the response, the thing that determines whether your stakeholders, your staff, and the public believe you, is a communications challenge.

Most crisis plans don't include a deepfake scenario. They should. What happens when a convincing video of your CEO appears online making a statement they never made? Who decides whether to respond publicly? What do you say? How quickly can you say it?

If comms teams aren't pushing IT and legal to think about this now, they're waiting to react to a crisis that punishes reaction.

The fake experts story is a warning. But the deeper challenge, deepfakes, synthetic media and fabricated video is coming for every organisation. And when it arrives, it will be comms professionals who have to lead the response.

The question is whether we'll be ready.

Tony Garner is managing director of Viva PR, a Lancashire-based, employee-owned agency specialising in defence aerospace, advanced manufacturing, and B2B tech communications. Viva PR is also CIPR corporate affiliate member. Download or stream Tony's interview with David Higgerson on PR in the Real World on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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Further reading

The rise of fake experts is undermining trust in media

Is it always important to talk to the national press?

Crisis or storm in a teacup? Why language inflation is proving costly

How PR for consumer packaged goods is driving brand loyalty