this reeks of a hoax (immigration restrictionists/trade protectionists often bemoan the media's supposed affinity for outsourcing because "their jobs aren't at risk).

I doubt it's a hoax. Just watch; if your job isn't physically nailed down here in this country, its continued existence here is quite finite.

If it's not a hoax ... I'm sorta unclear on how someone in India is supposed to go about reporting on local events in a California town. Ummm ...

"...a newspaper owned and run by Indians for the benefit of the citizens of Pasadena would save a lot of money, too. But the funny thing about outsourcing is that it doesn't usually work in that direction."

It could do, if some Indians set one up. What's your point?

When they hire an Indian "pundit," the media may start to worry and tell the real truth, as opposed ot Republican "truth."
If David Broder's column is taken over by someone from across the world, "Timmeh" Russert, that good-'Ol blue-collar boy from Buffalo, may show signs of "flop-sweat." "Timmeh, one boo-boo and we'll replace you with a pundit who was raised in the an industrial town near the Ganges river!"
If this article is true, nothing could better illustrate the stupidity of out-sourcing.
What's next? Gunga Din as Press Secretary answering questions from Punjab?
On second thought, that might be an improvement....

MSNBC just covered this, Sat 5/12/07 at 10:40am. They had some USA T spokesmodel unsuccessfully trying to parse this saying, that it's more of a "news gathering" position rather than a "repoting" post. Then why not hire some 12 year old with intertube access?

trade protectionists often bemoan the media's supposed affinity for outsourcing

I hear ya, but I thought "trade protectionists" often bemoaned the media's oversimplification of everything into "Free Trade" v. "Protectionism". But I could be mistaken; all I know is what I get from CNBC.

If it's not a hoax ... I'm sorta unclear on how someone in India is supposed to go about reporting on local events in a California town. Ummm ...

The article says that all meetings are available on the Internet. That's how the reporting is supposed to happen. Then the reporter can pick up the phone and call people for a phone interview.

"...a newspaper owned and run by Indians for the benefit of the citizens of Pasadena would save a lot of money, too. But the funny thing about outsourcing is that it doesn't usually work in that direction."

It could do, if some Indians set one up. What's your point?

My point is that the stakes in the game are not equal. Almost all of us have some skills that can be outsourced. Very few of us have the capital to decide to outsource the skills of other people.

Wondering here if Victor realizes that "pundit" is in fact a Hindu word.

If so, bravo on the pun.

A: I believe Pasadena has a large Indian American community, if that adds any relevance to it.

B: I seriously doubt this experiment will work out in the long run, as the lack of local familairity will probably outweigh the lower costs.

C: Barring that though. How hard is it to be a journalist anyway?

Seems like something a reasonably intelligent, english speaking chap or chapette with proper training from anywhere could pull off. I doubt they could be any worse than the local stock. Bully for them! and for the future American newspaper written & published in India too, although that seems way too inconvenient to even flirt with, but who knows.

How hard is it to be a journalist anyway?

You know, nobody says "ney, I do brain surgery in my spare time, why don't we swap stories" but tell people you write (or most anything reasonably creative) and suddenly it's Something We All Can Do. No, it's actually hard to be a journalist. That's why there are so few good ones. Geez.

When I think about the high cost of housing in the states and the huge debt that most students leave college with, I don't understand how we can possibly compete against workers in India, or China for that matter. I watched a movie on the English language a few years back that said that there were more English speakers in China than there were in the United Kingdom. Many of them have nice posh BBC accents. It's ironic an Indian could work in a call center and service customers in the Uk and the US. But US workers would never be acceptable to the British ears.

My brother is a journalist who works for the Wall Street Journal. I know that Journalists work hard. But, there is no arguing that the quality of Journalism has declined markedly.

At the San Diego Union Tribune for instance journalism seems to entail nothing more than cutting and pasting stuff available on various conservative websites.

When I was a kid there was two local papers in the small southern town were I lived. One came in the morning and one came in the afternoon. They were both independently owned and had their own editorial staff. Now there is only one paper and it is run by one of the big national chains. All the news is straight off the AP wire unedited. There is a tiny amount of local interest stories that all seem to be written by one high school intern.

I know that journalist are facing shrinking budgets and cooperate mismanagement. Right now Murdoch is trying to take over the Wall Street Journal and bust the union there. He also seems to think that the current editorial staff are a bunch of pansy waisted pinko lefties, and promises to add some real conservative meat to the editorial pages. For the rest of the paper he said that he didn't have the patience for long articles.

We newspaper readers have become very discouraged indeed.

"My point is that the stakes in the game are not equal. Almost all of us have some skills that can be outsourced. Very few of us have the capital to decide to outsource the skills of other people."

Oh, sure, you're right - though this isn't a point specific to outsourcing.

it's actually hard to be a journalist. That's why there are so few good ones. Geez.

That's true. But the market for good journalists is very small. The media seems content with their large number of mediocre and poor journalists. The only problem is that they cost too much. I suspect that mediocre-to-poor journalism can be done by lots of people.

here is the secret: ousource yoour city council to a town in India AND outsoure your reporting to that same town that way your reporters will still have access to their sources and everyone saves money and a developing economy gets money! LEts get teh DLC on this right away

Outsourcing these two elements to professionals enables the Internet marketer to retain control of crucial elements of the business such as creating new niches and promoting existing niches. These two components are the most critical and by retaining absolute control of these elements and overseeing other elements it is not likely the quality of the niche markets will be compromised by outsourcing.
Suzzane Waltz
outsourcing uk jobs