"As Amy Wellborn points out, "The Da Vinci Code" is fiction but the author makes assertions about history and presents them as widely accepted facts, introduced by such phrases as "historians say" and "scholars understand." "
They must be related to the "critics say" I always see in news articles.
No one has a name. Maybe it's a conspiracy.
Don't forget the dreaded, all-knowing "experts" who say a lot. :)