Even Reporters Aren’t Immune to Offshoring

It sounds like a parody of outsourcing you'd see on The Daily Show: 

Rather than send a reporter to a city council meeting, a publisher assigns a worker in India to watch a satellite feed of the meeting and write the story.

It's no spoof. In Pasadena, Calif., the owner of an upstart website covering the town has decided it's a lot cheaper to use journalists 9,000 miles away instead of a local beat reporter who understands the city and its issues.

While it's the most outrageous example yet of journalism outsourcing, it's not the only one. Last year, Reuters began using a staff of 100 in the Indian city of Bangalore to produce brief financial reports for the news service's business subscribers. And in northern California, four papers in the Alameda Newspaper Group have begun sending what had been union editorial, photography and other work to non-union shops.

One innovative way The Newspaper Guild-CWA is fighting back is by sponsoring classes through the CWA/NETT Academy. From Photoshop to web design to videography, the courses are helping journalists build the skills they need in today's digital media world.

"We're building a union work force that can meet the demands of today's high-tech media market," TNG-CWA President Linda Foley said. "We know there are enormous pressures on the industry to cut payrolls and outsource work, but the more valuable our members are in terms of skills and training, the harder it's going to be for employers to make an economic argument to cut their jobs."

For more information: www.cwanett.org.