Connecticut: "Sorry, we've Been Outsourced. This Issue Made In India."

[OhioChick]

May 29, 2009 at 11:49 AM
The alternative weekly publications of the New Mass. Media group, the Hartford Advocate, New Haven Advocate and Fairfield County Weekly have outsourced all of their editorial content to freelance journalists in India.

The first editions to have been created in this way will be released this Thursday. And rather than trying to bury the use of these potentially problematic methods of journalism, the publishers are courting the controversy. The cover of each paper will be emblazoned with the statement: "Sorry, we've Been Outsourced. This Issue Made In India."

And just so there is absolutely no confusion over the nationality of the journalist, each article is preceded by the notation, "this article was written by an Indian freelancer."

"It's been fascinating to me to see this go from a chuckle in an edit meeting to an entire issue," Group Managing Editor John Adamian related in a telephone interview with Editor&Publisher.

The relationship between the content and the reporter has produced results that may provoke some bemusement among the Connecticut readership. The pieces outsourced cover local news, entertainment and culture. Nilanjana Bhowmick enlightens Essex (Conn.) residents about the annual Rotary Club Shad bake, and advises, "Enjoy shad the way you feel comfortable. If George Washington was not daunted by its bones, why should you? After all, shad is not just a fish, it's a celebration of life!"

Immediate reactions of readers ranged from "this is an interesting, entertaining and provocative idea" to "some people who think it's idiotic," Adamian revealed. The publishers were conscious that they would inevitably risk encountering problems of a professional and logistical nature, "What if they're really good at it?" Adamian said. "What if we laugh ourselves out of a job? And then the questions grew more practical and more pressing: How do we coordinate an interview between an Indian journalist and a Californian musician with the 12-plus-hour time difference?"

The journalists replied to advertisements posted on Craigslist on the Mumbai and Bangalore sites, the primary cities for US outsourcing. "We got some responses from people who were very, very qualified and had written for The Guardian, the BBC and The Times of India - and were well outside our budget," Adamian said. In an explanatory note for online readers, the staff of the Advocate qualified that outsourcing was "not cheap" but the "experiment" was worth the "price", in the longer term campaign for the protection of classic journalism. Ultimately, with the benefit of wisdom through trial and error, the 'old school' local journalist could be reinstated with aplomb.

"But it's clear that in an age when publications are aggressively cutting costs and reducing staffs, India's millions of wired English speakers may present an irresistible resource. If so, our Indian colleagues will have earned the last laugh."

It appears that despite concerns innate to the concept of outsourcing in general as a business practice over the levels of quality that it can feasibly produce, the standard of journalism does not look set to drop. Pasadena.now, a Californian online local new site, who made the controversial decision to hire a body of writers in India and Mindworks Global Media, for example, only recruit trained and often highly experienced journalists.

The practice of editorial outsourcing is by nature polemical and will inevitably be received with much uncertainty by 'home' journalists, concerned by the shadow that it casts over their own indispensability as providers of information. Yet, publishers are recognising that circumstances dictate the need for, what is at times, drastic change, and outsourcing may prove to be a workable business model which allows news providers to stay afloat during the current economic climate.

http://www.editorsweblog.org/newsrooms_and_journalism/2009/05/connecticut_sorry_weve_been_outsourced_t_1.php

[Alcibiades]

1. Journalism is a trade

best practiced by locals. Most folks know little enough about national politics: the idea that folks from a foreign country, or even a neighboring state, would know enough to write adequately about anything in a local paper is laughable.

[Cobalt-60]

2. I wouldn't wipe my ass with it

This rag needs to be shunned.
Having our local newspapers colonized in this manner is completely unacceptable.
The reason the newspapers aren't selling as they did is that they've become crap.
Front page sports stories, too many flashy graphics, and not enough investigative reporting.
Cheer leading for the republicans hasn't really helped, either.
When they display their ass to the community they supposedly cover in this manner it needs to be spanked. Vigorously.

[jmamis]

3. An Important Note

Please understand: The New Haven and Hartford Advocate and the Fairfield County Weekly are NOT outsourcing, and this was not "the first editions to be created this way." This edition was a journalistic enterprise designed to show what would happen should news organizations opt to go that route. We -- yes, we, I am the publisher -- were interested in seeing if it was possible (it is); and what it would look like and read like. We are not outsourcing editorial content, and never intend to.