Local newsgathering outsourced to India
Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 11 May 2007 at 11:21
Tags: outsourcing
The academic literature on globalisation has long predicted that information technology would alllow white-collar back-office jobs to be outsourced to low-wage economies. Examples of legal, accountancy, software development tasks have been around for years.
‘You’re on my list, you journalists,” Princeton economist Alan Blinder told the Telegraph’s Edmund Conway earlier this week, discussing a list of “hundreds of occupations which he thinks could be obsolete in developed countries over the next generation”. As a result, Blinder controvertially predicts that 30 million to 40 million US jobs could be shipped abroad within the next generation.
Conway’s Telegraph profile focuses on lawyers and accountants, stressing that more education is not enough to protect theses high-status jobs from being set offshore. People entering professional jobs need to think about what type of accountant or lawyer they want to become. Family lawyers will survive. But those who write contracts could be in trouble, for example.
The same is true of journalists, of course. Some types of journalism are at greater risk than others. Reuters had financial journalists in Bangalore since 2004. Thomson, which is looking to merge with Reuters, shifted jobs at its AFX financial newswire to Mumbai earlier this year. The Financial Times, has outsourced six “low level” online editorial jobs to the Philippines. The Independent’s parent company, Independent News & Media, is moving design and subediting operations at one of its papers in New Zealand to Australia, is thinking of doing the same in Ireland, and pools subbing operations at its South African papers.
Production jobs and routine stories based on financial data can be done from anywhere, at least in theory. Surely local newsgathering is immune from this.
But if you thought pounding your patch at the local court or town hall would make your job safe, think again. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported on a California local news web site, Pasadenanow.com, that is advertising for a local news reporter — based in India.
The site’s publisher, James Macpherson, told AP that an Indian reporter covering local government in Pasadena is not as strange as it sounds. The local council’s meetings are webcast live, and telephone interviews can be conducted just as easily from half a world away:
“I think it could be a significant way to increase the quality of journalism on the local level without the expense that is a major problem for local publications,” said the 51-year-old Pasadena native. “Whether you’re at a desk in Pasadena or a desk in Mumbai, you’re still just a phone call or e-mail away from the interview.”
I doubt it’s possible to effectively cover a local patch from several time zones away. But perhaps it’s time to pick up that video camera. Shooting newspaper pictures via satellite is still impossible.
Tags: outsourcing
