Hanna Raskin has a new rule: If you want to write for her, you have to speak to her first.
As editor of The Food Section, a news outlet that covers food and social issues in the South, Raskin needed a barricade against the deluge of nonsense, AI pitches flooding her inbox.
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Now would-be freelancers must pick up the phone to make their case.
“I started seeing AI pitches pick up last year,” Raskin told Straight Arrow. “What I was seeing was so obviously manufactured by someone other than the writer, and with each passing month, it became a little bit harder to figure out.”
Raskin founded her outlet as a newsletter in 2021, and said that calling every freelancer previously wouldn’t have occurred to her.
From now on, though, pitching a story to her outlet will mean a real conversation, which should also weed out any writers unwilling to do the crucial reporting work of interviewing folks over the phone.
Why would AI pose a problem in pitching?
Pitching is a very specific part of the journalism process. Freelancers might find a local or national story, and contact different publications, tailoring the information they already have to the lens or perspective of that publication. The Food Section covers how food and food access intersect with society and culture in the South. Because it’s specific, the pitches tend to be specific too.
Raskin shared a pitch for a “great story” she’d received: a piece exploring how Southern food traditions were adapting to a new wave of immigration, leading to the opening of seven new halal BBQ spots in North Carolina alone.
But there was one glaring issue.
“As of this submission, there were not seven halal barbecue restaurants,” Raskin said. “There were none.”
The model came up with a story, and wrote a pitch, but it was all fake. This highlights a major problem with AI “journalists”: Because they’re not out in the community finding stories, they can write a perfect pitch, but often make up details that would render the actual article useless.
“It sounds like the kind of story you want to tell,” Raskin told Straight Arrow.
But because it’s not true, Raskin sees it as junk clogging up her inbox.
“AI is helping these so-called writers tailor their pitches to publications that are exactly like mine,” Raskin says.
She knows for a fact: Raskin prompted Claude for a pitch for The Food Section.
“It did it perfectly,” she said. “I mean, when I say perfectly, I mean completely imperfectly.”
And other publications are taking the bait, she said.
“I cover such a narrow scope of this country that I know who’s smoking hog in North Carolina. But if you sent that to an editor in Seattle or an editor in London, they’re not going to know,” she said. “It really made me feel like we need to fix this, not just for my publication, but for the industry at large.”
So her pitch-by-phone line will open in September.
Is this a widespread problem?
As AI content becomes cheaper, phone calls can become an increasingly important part of the vetting process for journalists.
“There were some people I’ve hired in the past that I didn’t reach out to by phone,” said Raskin. Often, she knew the writer from previous work with another editor or publication she knew, which helps ensure the person isn’t a fraud. Her new phone line is an attempt to level the playing field for reporters who might not have those industry connections, while still filtering out the AI noise.
Last year, both Wired and Business Insider removed articles written by a freelancer called “Margaux Blanchard” after they were discovered to have been generated by AI. Dispatch also received a pitch from the same “reporter,” which triggered suspicions when the story featured a totally fictional town.
Editors at Straight Arrow have also received freelance pitches that were obviously written by AI, including several that reference the same person or the same town.
Aside from the junk pitches she receives, Raskin is concerned with how freelancers might use AI in their reporting, and what impression that could make on sources. She considers the phone call a way to screen people for the skills they need as a reporter.
“I don’t want anyone representing my publication to be using these tools when they’re contacting people,” she said. “It really pollutes the whole system.”
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