:::It's not a problem with the truth of the assertion- it's an issue with whether or not it adds to the article in a way that 'shortly following' does not. All proposed changes have been incredibly awkward and would be an issue readability-wise for our readers. Adding it adjacently to 'shortly following' is, as stated before, unnecessary. My suggestion to you: Come up with a way to add this information you feel is important in a sentence, something like 'Erik Kain, writing for Forbes, believes that the short, 24 hour time span within which these op-eds were published is one of the reasons why a very small minority of gamers believe the world is ending.'