--- title: "Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Instructs Staff to Welcome AI Sloplords" description: "The editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal praised Fortune Magazine for using AI to crank out hundreds of articles." date: "2026-04-07" modified: "2026-04-07" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/wall-street-journal-sloplords" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Ethics" --- # Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Instructs Staff to Welcome AI Sloplords ![A man in a black suit kneeling with hands pressed together in a pleading gesture, holding a black briefcase. The background features a large orange circle over a blue grid pattern.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images* Emma Tucker, the editor-in-chief of the esteemed *Wall Street Journal*, just heaped praise on the sloplords drowning journalism in AI-generated dreck. In an email [obtained by *Semafor*](), Tucker congratulated a *Fortune* editor for being a likeminded individual embracing AI, and was so impressed by the magazine's AI efforts that she forced her underlings to read about them. Last month, the [*WSJ* reported]() on how *Fortune* editor Nick Lichtenberg used AI to crank out 600 stories in just six months at the magazine, which is more than what his colleagues write in an entire year. AI-assisted articles made up nearly 20 percent of *Fortune's* web traffic in the second half of 2025. As Lichtenberg happily admits, he was literally just copy-pasting press releases into a chatbot and asking it to spit out an article. And this, apparently, is the kind of gumshoe work that warrants being lavished with effusive plaudits from the editor of one of the US's so-called newspapers of record. Per the *Semafor* scoop, Tucker emailed *Fortune's* Alyson Shontell saying she "absolutely loved" the piece about "your reporter Lichtenberg," before lamenting the broad resistance to AI in journalism. Tucker, naturally, viewed herself and Shontell as the pioneers bucking this trend. "I love your totally clear-eyed, unsentimental approach to AI in newsrooms," Tucker enthused. "It makes you pretty unique among our cohort." "I just did an All Hands meeting with our APAC staff (I'm in Tokyo) and told them they all had to read it," she added. Then Tucker dropped a hot take. "Anyone who doesn't get what you are doing at fortune \[sic\], or thinks it is 'wrong', should get out of journalism fast!" AI's role in the newsroom remains a hot-button issue in the industry, with recent controversies over the *New York Times* publishing content that was AI-generated or assisted — in both [alleged]() and [confirmed cases]() — spilling over into the public eye. Despite how divisive the tech remains, newsroom leaders are championing its use whether their underlings like it or not. A senior manager at the *Associated Press*, for example recently [told staffers]() that "resistance" to AI was "futile." Meanwhile, major newspapers have launched high profile experiments with the tech, with mixed results. *The Washington Post* [debuted a disastrous AI-generated podcast feature]() last December that fabricated facts and misattributed quotes; *Bloomberg* uses AI to [provide summaries]() at the top of its articles; and *The New York Times* has used AI to [help generate headlines]() for years. **More on AI:** [*Why Is the New York Times Laundering the Reputation of a Sleazy AI Startup That’s Selling GLP-1s via a Dishonest Dumpster Fire of Fake Doctors, Phony Before-and-After Pictures, and Other Glaring Red Flags?*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()