According to a story in Editor & Publisher, the move will not affect staffing at the Register. Maybe not, but I can't imagine it not affecting morale.
This reminds me of the moves most radio stations have made in the last few years. A 2007 study by University of Colorado professor Lee Hood found that stations that once produced their own news reports now rely on news that's patched together in far-off cities. According to a University of Colorado news release, Hood said:
"News is how people learn what it means to live in 'this place.' And to have somebody who may not even have been in your community ostensibly deciding what's news in your community, well, I think that's alarming."I can't help but agree. Now, back to the OC Register. Editing is much more than punctuation, grammar and AP style. Being a competent editor means understanding the community in which you work. How could someone in India know what's important to people in Southern California? A good editor needs to know the not just the names, but also the story behind prominent people, places and institutions. What's next? Letters to the editor being answered by a representative in Calcutta?
I'm curious what readers think.
3 comments:
I agree with your comments. Outsourcing manufacturing is one thing, but to outsource copy editing is too much.
There are some things only the locals would recognize. Not everything can be learned in a book.
Why would a newspaper outsource the copy desk? What's in it for the business? Is money the issue?
Media is locally competitive enough.
As a banker, I have to deal with professional service workers in India on a regular basis. If the quality is good, you won't be able to tell the difference. If the quality is bad, the outsourcing won't last long.
In my experience, professional service workers that work for outsourcing firms in India are very highly educated and extremely motivated. They have newspapers all over the world, not just in the USA. An editor can learn context by reading back issues of the newspaper and asking questions. People move to take jobs in new communities; they somehow find out who the key players are, what the important places in town are and what issues are of interest to readers. An editor in India can do the same thing, although they'll never know the community as well as a resident.
And who's to say that a copy editor in the United States deserves the job more than a copy editor in India? Don't Indians deserve jobs too?
Strong action shd be taken against such people....black list them....
Debera
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