Galway university 'fake news' expert claims fake doctorate

A leading Irish academic and former Fulbright scholar who is an expert on disinformation and "fake news" has been falsely claiming to have a doctorate from a distinguished English university, Prime Time has established.

Tom Felle, an associate professor at University of Galway's Department of Journalism and Media who was head of the department until last year, has been described as "Dr Tom Felle" on the university’s website, including in prospectuses designed to attract students to study at the college.

In a submission on University of Galway branded notepaper earlier this year to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport, he was also presented as "Dr Tom Felle".

Mr Felle claims to have a doctorate in journalism from City, University of London (now City St George’s), where he used to work as a senior lecturer. The university’s department of journalism is widely regarded as the most prestigious of its type in Britain.

A former senior academic at City St George's told Prime Time that "Tom registered for a PhD by prior publication with a City supervisor. However, the degree was not completed and he left the university a couple of years afterwards and did not pursue the PhD. He was therefore never awarded the degree."

Mr Felle, a former journalist, has appeared on television and radio and in print as an expert on media issues, especially disinformation and online abuse of female politicians. In 2024, he was appointed as an expert assessor for the media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán.

He is also listed as a judge for this year's prestigious Irish Journalism Awards.

Prime Time first contacted Mr Felle in June by phone to ask him about his doctorate. In that conversation, he stated that he was awarded the PhD in 2022 by City. He has made the same claim in his curriculum vitae.

"It wasn't like a traditional PhD," he told Prime Time, "it was a set of a set of journal articles done over, probably, five or six years."

Such a qualification is known as a PhD by prior publication. Although it involves a shorter thesis than a typical PhD, City St George's regulations state that "a PhD by prior publication must meet the same standard of academic excellence as a PhD by any other route."

Mr Felle said he was unable to recall the title of his thesis when speaking with Prime Time. "I can’t remember exactly," he said, "but it was on media and democracy. I think it was something like the role of journalism in changing times… in an evolving democracy, something like that."

While there is an obligation on City St George's PhD students to submit completed theses to the library - where they are publicly accessible - there is no record of a thesis by Mr Felle. When asked if he knew why the library does not hold a copy of his thesis, he replied, "I don't."

Prime Time subsequently asked Mr Felle to provide the title of his thesis and to provide evidence that he had submitted it to the City University library. He did not respond to those requests.

In his phone conversation with Prime Time, Mr Felle also stated that he did not have any external examiner for his PhD, that he had no thesis supervisor and he did not do a viva voce (an oral defence of his thesis).

Several current and former staff and former PhD students of City St George’s Department of Journalism told Prime Time that a PhD would simply not progress where there is no supervisor and would not be awarded without external examination and a viva.

City St George's declined to comment, saying, "we cannot confirm nor deny whether a person is an alumnus of City St George’s, University of London without their consent. To do so is likely to breach our data protection obligations."

In a subsequent statement, it said that PhDs "can only be awarded following a successful viva conducted by an external examiner and an independent viva chair. All PhD students have a supervisor who guides their work."

Under the UK’s Freedom of Information Act, Prime Time asked City St George's, in late July, how many of the four journalism PhDs it awarded in the academic years 2021/22 and 2022/23 were PhDs by prior publication, the type claimed by Mr Felle.

The university responded in August saying that it didn't hold such information.

Prime Time requested a review of that response on the basis that "It is inconceivable that the information requested (whether any of the four were a PhD by prior publication) is not in your records."

Last Friday, the university responded with the outcome of that review. It stated, "...the University can confirm that none of the four Journalism PhDs awarded during the 2021/22 and 2022/23 academic years was awarded by prior publication."

In other words, the University did not award a PhD by prior publication to Mr Felle in 2022, as he has claimed.

From 2013 to 2018, Mr Felle lectured at City’s Department of Journalism, sometimes referred to as the "Harvard of journalism".

After our initial phone conversation, Prime Time emailed three sets of detailed follow-up queries to Mr Felle, but he did not respond.

Neither did he respond to follow-up attempts to contact him by text messages and phone calls.

Prime Time also contacted the University of Galway (formerly known as University College Galway and NUI Galway) for comment.

In a statement, it said that "Any questions about the veracity of academic records would be a matter for the University to address internally and privately."

In a subsequent list of questions to University of Galway, Prime Time pointed out that in a series of webpages, social media posts, and prospectuses aimed at attracting students to study journalism at UoG in recent years, Tom Felle is described as "Dr Tom Felle."

The university was also asked if it had verified Mr Felle's qualifications and if it was satisfied about the use of the "Dr Tom Felle" title in the January 2026 submission to the Oireachtas.

That submission was authored by Mr Felle and a colleague and delivered on University of Galway branded notepaper.

The university did not respond to those questions. However, many of University of Galway's webpages and social media posts which had referred to "Dr Tom Felle" have been recently deleted or edited to remove the title "Dr".

An official profile of Mr Felle on the University of Galway website stated that his research interests include, "Trust, transparency and the role of journalism in democratic life" as well as "Information disorder, verification, and the manipulation of online information."

On his recently deleted LinkedIn profile, Mr Felle wrote, "I engage regularly with policymakers and public bodies, including giving policy advice to governments and international bodies... I was a Fulbright Scholar in Los Angeles, California in 2023."

Fulbright scholarships are prestigious academic scholarships that offer the chance to do research or study in the United States. They are funded by the US government.

In a profile announcing the award of the Fulbright Irish Scholar-in-Residence Award for 2023 to Mr Felle, he is described as having "provided advice and testimony to national governments and the EU, and collaborated with the United Nations migration agency, IOM, as the lead academic partner for the Global Migration Media Academy from 2020-2022."

While video footage of City St George's university's graduation ceremonies is available online, Mr Felle told Prime Time that he didn't attend his own doctoral graduation around December 2022 "because it was during Covid."

Pandemic-related travel restrictions were lifted by early 2022.

Footage also exists online of Mr Felle in what appear to be doctoral robes at a graduation ceremony for students of the University of Galway.

The questions raised over Mr Felle's academic credentials are unwelcome news for the University of Galway's Department of Journalism, which has suffered previous negative publicity.

In 2018, the university (then known as NUI Galway) refunded fees to third- and fourth- year students after complaints of substandard quality in some journalism courses.

The person University of Galway hired to lead the department and help to restore its reputation was Tom Felle.