If you were to run covert intelligence operations, you would want to embed yourself in the all forms of the media so you can suppress any stories before they come out.
So that seems a good practice to me - use a name that could be arguably yours so that you are not hiding anything if caught out but enough not yours so there is plausible deniability. Then make a bunch of deeper cover names that you run that are harder to pin on you, if anyone is looking they are looking at the one that is close to your name.
but then maybe I've just read too many books.
Bit strange to do it under a name that is close to your name