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Journalist from India Covering News in California What the Heck?
 
 

"What the heck?" That's what I blurted this morning after reading an article about a Newspaper in Pasadena that hired two journalists from India to cover news 12,841 km away from their homeland.

Hey, I'm all for saving money . . . but this is getting a little out of hand . . . isn't it? I have a hard enough time convincing my clients to outsource their operations such as telesales, customer service, and IT projects overseas . . . .and now I read this? I was a little confused on how 2 guys from India can accurately cover the news in California . . . so I kept on reading . . .

Turns out it made sense in today's highly competitive market. Here are some interesting points made by James Macpherson -- the paper's publisher:

"Due to California's public access laws, virtually all relevant government documents and meetings are available on the Internet," MacPherson said.
In addition, the publication's staff in Pasadena would record and photograph all the required meetings and interviews and send them to India through e-mail.

Here's an excerpt from McPherson's job posting for the position at his publication:
"We do not believe that geographic distance between India and California will present insurmountable problems, and that working together with you will result in your development of a keen working knowledge of this city's affairs. This will result in accurate and authoritative news reports . . . "

Let's hope he's right! Thanks to the good 'ol Internet everyone can outsource . . . .even our local newspapers! Kinda scary . . . I know. Turns out that this particular paper -- "Pasadena Now" hired two Indian journalists at a combined annual cost of only $20,800!! I repeat - TWO Indian journalists at this price! That's a real bargain if you ask me . . . I just hope we don't get an article concerning our City Hall and see a picture of the Taj Mahal in the article instead! Ok, well that won't happen . . . .but you know what I mean.

Generally India's journalist have been used to edit, rewrite, and write press releases . . . so I guess it was a natural progression to have overseas journalist that wrote the story from scratch too. Reuters, an international news agency, has already set up a captive center in India specifically for editing and rewriting jobs. They have more than 1,000 employees based overseas.

This particular article really brings to light the reality of a global workforce in today's economy. I have helped many companies leverage the benefits of offshore outsourcing and this article will only add to my "everyone is doing it" approach...so don't let your competition beat you to it! If a newspaper is hiring journalist to write articles about their local news from all the way across the globe . . . I think every business can benefit from the cost savings of offshore outsourcing. At the same time, however, I can see where some people may be upset that their local news is now being outsourced overseas too! When it makes sense financially . . . who can you blame?