From next month, anyone hoping to pitch a story to Hannah Raskin's Food Section will need to do something radical: ring her up instead of sending an email.

The change is a direct response to the flood of AI-generated pitches now clogging inboxes across the industry, along with the growing number of writers using AI tools without disclosing it.

I caught up with Raskin to talk about why she is making the switch, and why she believes a human voice on the other end of the line is worth protecting.

Why phone?

There was no single pitch that pushed Raskin over the edge.

"It just got to a point that was unmanageable," she told me. "So I took one week's vacation and realised we don't have to put up with it."