AI Slop Is Flooding Pitches. Writers Pay the Price.
Three years after chatbots went mainstream, low-effort AI text has chewed through the internet. Legal filings, music, and yes - journalism - are getting hit with prose that reads confident but collapses under scrutiny.
The risk isn't abstract. It's in your inbox. Editors are getting pitches that look polished on the surface, but the work behind them is stitched together, cribbed, or stuffed with quotes that never happened.
The Pitch That Looked Real, Until It Didn't
A Toronto editor recently traced a string of slick pitches back to a writer using the name "Victoria Goldiee." A quick search suggested real bylines. Then the red flags started stacking up: stilted phrasing in emails, borrowed structure, and quotes that fell apart on verification.
Designer Young Huh, quoted in one of those pieces, flatly denied ever speaking to the writer. Other editors said the drafts leaned too heavily on existing work. When confronted, the writer abruptly hung up. Several outlets - including The Guardian and Dwell - later removed her work.
It wasn't an isolated fluke. Publications as established as Wired and Quartz have been fooled by similar tactics. You can read the original reporting on this episode in The Local here.
Why This Keeps Happening
Cost-cutting cleared out fact-checkers and shrank editorial time. At the same time, executives push staff to use AI tools with well-known failure modes. Meanwhile, Google's AI summaries discourage clicks, squeezing already thin margins.
That mix creates a soft target for scammers: prestigious brands, fewer guardrails, overworked editors, and text generators that make falsehoods sound sincere.
A Playbook to Protect Your Work (and Your Reputation)
If you write, you need to signal legitimacy. If you edit, you need fast verification. Here's a simple, repeatable system.
Freelancers: Prove You're Real
- Show receipts. List 5-10 clips with direct links to live articles. Prefer outlets with editor mastheads or staff pages that list you.
- Make verification trivial. Keep a short About page, a professional email on your domain, and one public social profile that matches your byline.
- Pitch with sources. Include 3-5 named sources and why they matter. If quoting interviews, offer raw audio on request.
- Be explicit about AI. If you use it for ideation or outlines, say so. Never use AI for quotes, facts, or statistics.
Editors: Verify Faster Without Burning Your Day
- Run the 5-minute check. Search exact-match quotes in quotes, sample a paragraph in a plagiarism checker, and scan for stilted phrasing or generic filler.
- Require source notes. No sources, no assignment. Ask for contact info and why each source is relevant.
- Ask for raw material. For any quoted interview, request audio or transcripts. No tape, no quote.
- Do a sanity call. A 3-minute video or phone intro filters most fakes. Scammers hate live conversation.
- Tighten contracts. Ban fabricated quotes and undisclosed AI writing. Add kill fees tied to verification failures.
- Create a "risky pitch" checklist. New writer? Extra steps: reverse-image search headshots, confirm prior bylines via editorial contacts, and check metadata on any provided media.
Red Flags That Deserve a Hard Pause
- Overly formal, generic emails that avoid specifics about sources or access.
- Clips that read like summaries of other outlets, with similar structure and phrasing.
- Quotes that sound too tidy, with no available transcripts or tapes.
- Urgency for quick approval, paired with resistance to a short call.
Use AI, Don't Let It Use You
- Acceptable: brainstorming angles, outlining, formatting, headline variants.
- Never acceptable: drafting quotes, inventing stats, summarizing sources you haven't read.
- Document your workflow. If AI touched a draft, note where. Keep humans on the facts.
- Skip "AI detectors." They're unreliable. Trust process, not scorecards.
If you want structured practice with responsible workflows, see these curated options for writers at Complete AI Training.
The Standard Hasn't Changed
Truth, attribution, and original reporting still win. Readers can feel the difference, and editors reward it - especially as low-grade AI text floods the feed.
Keep your process clean. Make verification easy. And refuse shortcuts that trade short-term speed for long-term trust.
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