What the work actually involves

You will read or listen to AI-produced journalistic artifacts — wire-style briefs, longer analyses, broadcast scripts, explainer copy, correction notices — and judge them the way a desk editor would. Much of the volume is head-to-head comparison: two model outputs on the same assignment, and you decide which one is better and write the reasoning. The reasoning is the deliverable. A rating without a defensible editorial argument behind it is worth little to the people training the model.

A second stream is scenario review. You are handed a reporting situation — a single anonymous source on a serious allegation, a study whose press release overstates its findings, a developing story with conflicting casualty numbers — and you evaluate how the model handled story selection, source weighting, attribution, and framing. Here the platform wants your craft knowledge made explicit: why a second source was required, what the lede buried, where the passive voice hid an actor.

What the screen looks for

  • Verifiable reporting history. Four-plus years in a newsroom or equivalent role, with bylines, air credits, or clips you can point to.
  • Editorial reasoning under follow-up. The AI screener will push on your judgments. Vague appeals to "news sense" collapse; specific standards survive.
  • Fact-checking instinct. Whether you catch plausible-sounding fabrications — a real agency attached to a policy it never issued, a quote in the right register from the wrong person.
  • Written English at publication standard, since your rationales are read as prose.

Logistics

Fully remote and asynchronous; you work through Mercor's task interface on your own schedule. Expect 20+ hours a week for four to six weeks, with an immediate start. Payment is task-based at first — you are paid on approval of your initial task, and completing it within the stated timeline is what qualifies you for hourly pay across the remainder. Rates in this band have been observed at $70–110/hr but are set per project and are not guaranteed.