Being on the receiving end of AI-generated slop has been “incredibly depressing,” food journalist and founder Hanna Raskin told Nieman Lab this week. Raskin estimated that roughly a quarter of recent freelance pitches were “wholly AI, meaning neither the writer nor the proposed story appears to exist in the real world.” Now, if you want to write for Raskin’s award-winning newsletter, you’ll have to pick up the phone. The Food Section will switch to a pitch-by-phone system in September. After all, AI can’t report or pitch via phone (yet). The new hotline, Raskin said, “has the added benefit of weeding out supposed reporters who aren’t in the habit of ringing up strangers.” Read more.