https://thelocal.to/investigating-scam-journalism-ai/
"In late September, I put out a call for pitches from freelance journalists. As
an editor at
The Local, an online magazine in Toronto that wins awards for
its long-form journalism, I have a stable of dependable writers I like to work
with. But we’re always trying to bring new voices onto our site, and an open
call for pitches on a specific theme has, in the past, been a good way to find
them.
The last time I’d put out an open call was more than a year ago, when we’d
received the usual stream of ideas—some intriguing, most not quite right for
us, but all recognizably human. A year later, things were very different.
My request this time was for stories about health care privatization, which has
become a fraught topic in Canada. Over the next week, I got a flood of story
ideas from people around the world. Some, from writers in Africa, India, and
the U.S., obviously weren’t right for a Toronto publication. But many had the
sound, at least, of plausible Local stories.
One pitch in particular seemed promising. The writer, Victoria Goldiee,
introduced herself as having written for
The Globe and Mail,
The Walrus,
and Maisonneuve—Canadian outlets that publish the same kind of feature writing
we do. The pitch tackled the idea of privatization with a catchy angle about
the rise of “membership medicine.”
“The story would track how these plans transform health care into something
resembling Netflix or Amazon Prime, and what this means for a public system
that has long prided itself on universality,” it read.
What set the pitch apart from other emails suggesting similar stories was the
amount of reporting the author had already done, as well as her collection of
bylines. Victoria said she’d already spoken with a number of people—a
42-year-old consultant in Vancouver, a 58-year-old construction worker in
Hamilton, and health care experts like Toronto physician Danielle Martin, who
she quoted as saying “membership medicine is a creeping form of privatization.”
When I googled her, I saw that Victoria had written stories for a set of
publications that collectively painted the picture of an ambitious young
freelancer on the rise—short pieces in prestigious outlets like
The Cut and
The Guardian, lifestyle features in titles like
Architectural Digest and
Dwell, and in-depth reporting in non-profit and industry publications like
Outrider and the
Journal of the Law Society of Scotland. Her headshot was
of a youthful Black woman. She was, according to her author bio, “a writer with
a keen focus on sharing the untold stories of underrepresented communities in
the media.”
At the next editorial story meeting, we decided to take a shot on Victoria and
assign the story. Then I began looking more closely at her work."
Via Esther Schindler.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
