May 11, 2007
Pasadena Newspaper Outsources Political Reporting to India
PasadenaNow, a Web-only newspaper that covers local news in the city of Pasadena, California, placed an ad on the Bangalore, India, version of Craigslist: "We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA."
PasadenaNow's editor and publisher, James Macpherson, claims that intercontinental reporting of local Pasadena politics is possible because webcasts of city council meetings are now available over the Internet. "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," he tells AP's Justin Pritchard.
The move represents a new threat to professional journalists, already beset on on one side from the tide of independent bloggers that some people might think make traditional reporting and punditry irrelevant, and on the other from the collapse of newspaper advertising revenues lost to online markets such as Craigslist.
It's hard to imagine how a remote journalist can cover the nuances of community politics. It would be tough to recognize when a city councilmember was skating around a local hot-button topic unless one had a good grounding in those hot-button topics. How would you cope with a press conference?
On the other hand, it would be truly sweet to see the look on David Broder's face as he learned his position was being outsourced to Bangalore.
(via Avedon Carol)
Posted by abostick at May 11, 2007 01:04 PMOutsourcing local reporting beats all for stabbing skilled labor in the back. I just heard the publisher on the radio. His wavering voice suggesting the "upside" of providing cheap reportage to his readership and his craven assertion of a "big picture" he did not articulate all said to me,
"This guy knows he hurt American journalism and every reporter in America. Now he's checking to see if he can get away with it."
Does his readership really want to shop the big-box store of journalism, as he seems to believe?
Perhaps naively, I presume that news readership seeks journalism that not only presents but comprehends issues. I suppose they want more than just transcriptions of what happened on a webcast and canned commentary offloaded into email. Indian reporters can't see behind the scenes on a webcast. They don't know the "players" they see on their web TV and those that do not appear. And, at the risk of sounding sentimental, their beat is not Home to them. They have no stake in the issues but a cut-rate paycheck. They have no neighbors whom they serve and to whom they are accountable.
Trust, accessibility and accountability underwrite journalistic integrity. When news publishers claim that the fifth estate is just another widget that might be produced more cheaply overseas, American freedom (what was left of it) has already sold at a rock-bottom price.
Posted by: L.Schneider at May 20, 2007 05:27 AM
