The Associated Press reports today:
The Miami Herald is outsourcing copyediting of a weekly community news section and some advertising production work to India, a newspaper editor said Friday.
Starting in January, copyediting and design in a weekly section of Broward County community news and other special advertising sections will be outsourced to Mindworks, based in New Delhi.
The project is still in the testing phase, so it was not clear if or how employment in South Florida will be affected, Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal said.
Mindworks will also monitor reader comments posted to online stories, he said.
Hurray for the growth of global cosmopolitanism? Hurray for allowing talented U.S. journalists to focus on what they do best — hard-hitting reporting — and leave more mundane tasks to others? Boo for the continuing loss of newspaper jobs? Who cares: it’s just Broward County community news? What do you think? Maybe BMG should outsource comment monitoring to India?
Did Charley on the MTA outsource his endorsement rights to India? I’m sick of seeing those question marks next to your name, Charley — just tell me who to vote for already!!
As a former copy editor (OK, I still edit copy, but I have a better title now) I’m really wondering how this is going to work. How do you train people in another country, even ones who are fluent in English, to edit something for an American audience? What about deadlines? Are they going to edit news copy, which even at a weekly tends to come in at half-past doomsday? How about the fact checking aspect of the job? Copy editors are often the last people to prevent something wrong or stupid getting in. Are the Indian copy editors going to write headlines? That’s usually the copy editor’s job, and it’s harder than it looks.
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p>Of course, maybe we should be thankful that the good people at the Miami Herald still have copy editors in the first place.
…I’ve read about hospital companies in the US who outsource quite a bit of radiology (interpretation of X-ray images) to India. With cheap communications over the Internet, it’s definitely possible.
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p>Two problems. One, what American would want to go into radiology, knowing that s/he might be outsourced. Two, there already have been problems maintaining confidentiality of records in India.
My question is why would Deval Patrick be promoting changes to legislation (increasing H1B visas) that encourage this practice, even when it’s to the detriment of his own stated goals of encouraging people to enter into specialty fields (science, engineering, technology and medical)? What about the people who are currently being discriminated against in favor of H1B visa holders? Where does it stop? How many jobs will be lost and how many professions will be lost before this becomes a crisis? It’s no longer limited to “specialty” professions. How many different types of jobs can be expected to disappear from the US?
With all newspapers suffering while trying to adapt to a new information age I’m little surprised that they would look overseas. Any place that speaks English and is cheaper will work for a while.
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p>The real problem I see is the poor quality of journalism. I can’t see that getting better. The controlled media is being beaten by the Internet sites. Why spend on a newspaper and get the usual pap, day after day? How much more news do we get from BMG than from the controlled local papers? And, if not from BMG then other internet sources.
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p>I find the biggest national story of the week to be the Senate remaining open to thwart the Executive in temporary appointments. Here we have the Democrats finally ceasing to lick the President’s boots and standing up against the appointments of more thugs. Hooray for our side! But a story little covered in the press but covered on many Internet news sites. (Hmmm, don’t think I saw it mentioned on BMG.)
What Internet sites are beating the “controlled media?” How much actual reporting, not reprinting and repeating, is being done by Web sites that aren’t part of a larger media corporation?
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p>This site? Sorry, all due respect to everyone here, but this ain’t a news site.
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p>Yes, I suppose semi-full disclosure requires me to admit that I work for Gatehouse Media, one of those evil media conglomerates, but we actually do reporting here. Though the business of the US Senate isn’t usually something we cover.
AP, UPI, Reuters, the BBC, McClatchy (former Knight Ridder) and maybe a few other news services. Newspapers buy their feeds and may re-write them a little bit and put their own by-lines on the articles that they publish.
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p>MSM does very little investigative reporting on its own, unless it is local.
Do you, or anyone else, really think the Patriot-Ledger, for example, should devote money and resources to covering national and international politics when that stuff is handled perfectly well elsewhere?
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p>Yes, the AP provides that service to most of what everyone dismisses as the “MSM.” It’s done that for decades. Small news outlets depend on it because they can’t do it themselves, and shouldn’t.
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p>Besides, the fact that much reporting is done by news services doesn’t actually answer the question I posed. How many Web Sites, not affiliated with a major media company do actual journalism?
Do you, or anyone else, really think the Patriot-Ledger, for example, should devote money and resources to covering national and international politics when that stuff is handled perfectly well elsewhere?
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p>Yes, the AP provides that service to most of what everyone dismisses as the “MSM.” It’s done that for decades. Small news outlets depend on it because they can’t do it themselves, and shouldn’t.
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p>Besides, the fact that much reporting is done by news services doesn’t actually answer the question I posed. How many Web Sites, not affiliated with a major media company do actual journalism?
This auspicious determination is of great fortune to Miami newspaper. It is with pleasure that readers will experience the enjoyment of off-shore commenting, that allows for flexibility and true personality of writings. This wonderful development illuminates our knowledge as surely as the festival of Diwali, and is bringing much peace and understanding.
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p>Commenter 4X-5JL. Please contact supervisor with any questions.