Critics Think It's Better To Be Uninformed Than To Read Articles Written By Foreigners
from the the-news-blues dept
Earlier this week a news site in Pasadena caused a minor brouhaha when it announced that it would hire two journalists in India to cover the Pasadena city council, through the use of an internet video feed. Although outsourcing news writing is not a new thing, somehow the fact that the journalists would be covering local news has really set people off, particularly people who are already worried about things like the state of old media and the rise of globalization. Over at the HuffingtonPost, Barbara Ehrenreich decries the site's plans (via Romenesko) and compares the whole thing to disgraced New York Times journalist Jayson Blair, who made up articles about events that he wasn't at. This is a pretty ludicrous charge. The problem with Jayson Blair wasn't just that he wasn't where he said he was, but that he was actually making up quotes. A journalist in India watching a video feed of the city council can write just as good of an article as a reporter at the meeting. Presumably, Ehrenrich wouldn't have a problem with an American journalist writing about a Congressional hearing that was observed on C-SPAN, but what's the real difference? Instead of worrying that a job is being done by someone halfway overseas, we should be excited that technology and globalization are expanding the news business, so that even something like the Pasadena city council meeting can now be covered. Unfortunately, those who are in ideological agreement with Ehrenreich seem to have temporarily gotten their way, as the proprietor of the site says he's been so overwhelmed by the negative reaction that he's been unable to get the project going.
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Local knowledge?
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Re: Local knowledge?
I am also not opposed to journalists in India for reporting on National issues, assuming they know enough about America to do a good job. My feelings would be the same though whether the Pasadena city council was covered by an Indian writer or one from North Dakota. Local events should be handled by local journalists.
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Re: Local knowledge?
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Re: Re: Local knowledge?
No, they'd be acting as stenographers. Journalists do more than just report events; they verify, analyze, place things in context. A good reporter can do that without bias, attempting to show all sides of an issue. Someone without any background on the events they're reporting can't do that and must take what is said at face value, which makes them automatically MORE biased toward (in this case) the city council. Bias doesn't necessarily mean you have a hidden agenda or vested interest in one side over the other, it means you show only one side of an issue.
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Re: Re: Re: Local knowledge?
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Halfway overseas?
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There is a lot of information that cannot be
I would not like to get the news from people who do not live where the news is occurring and may completely miss or misinterpret information that a local would not.
(although to be honest i am less than thrilled with the coverage of people who are on the spot.)
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Journalism
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Yes and...
Yes, because they will likely miss not only context but also how it effects the people of the local community. At that point I do think they should just do pure transcripts because, unless these overseas reporters are somehow able to immerse themselves in local issues from the POV of the local citizen, they will be giving some pretty flat commentary.
Just because technology allows you to do something, doesn't mean it's going to be worthwhile. I'm sorry mate, I wouldn't be up in arms over the fact that it can be done or that they are doing it simply because they are overseas. I'd be up in arms because this news source just became less useful than the kid down the street from my parents who does a weekly paper/online website for their community, The Junk Journal.
Wiki=
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Junk_Journal
That kid at least can give some context. Just my 2 pence mate.
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Re: Yes and...
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Re: Re: Yes and... (by Anon Coward)
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Re: Re: Re: Yes and... (by Anon Coward)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes and... (by Anon Coward)
But that still does not address why you picked on the Indian caste system, slick talkers et al?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes and... (by Anon Coward)
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I Don't Know....
Thing is I don't see this as being a huge advancement from what is already being done in the media (note I say media instead of news because it's all about ratings - even for news, but thats a side story). Technology and globalization is used currently in nearly all major events worldwide. The only difference here is that someone over seas is reporting on a local town instead of covering an over seas issue. I won't get into the whole "outsourcing taking American jobs" debate, but I will say that I don't see this as a real advancement at all.
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How Cheap Can They Get?
How much do they think they're going to save, providing a source of information not even in the country, let alone in the room?
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I have been to India and they write better
I support India writing our news.
Jamie B.
Texas, USA
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They may write better, but they don't know Pasaden
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What about Aunt Bee?
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The real business of Journalism
Newspapers are in the trust business. People rely on them to not just provide raw facts, but to provide context for those facts. That context comes with researching and building a base of understanding that expands beyond the initial items of the story.
So this isn't a story of people rejecting technology, or rejecting foreigners. I think the people would have been just as upset to know that a guy in his apt from Houston was covering the local chamber meetings as they would be hearing about two guys from India.
Most major communities make their chamber and city council meetings available either on TV cable access channels or via the Internet, and the minutes from chamber meetings are normally posted online by most major chambers. So why then would people read the paper?
People read the paper because they don't want to take the time to sit through the meetings and they don't want to read the minutes in full. They want someone to consolidate that information, research items brought up in the meetings, create local context, and then write stories from those meetings for them to read. Having remote writers only allows for the consolidating and writing of the stories, it doesn't allow for proper research or context. Therefore the paper failed to delivery on its main product, which was trust.
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--
Texas Concealed Handgun License Course in Plano, TX
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I think the value of a journalist is the background knowledge experience and context he/she has that will add to the 'raw' event.
Maybe we should have MDs in India diagnosing us through a feed :-)
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Re:
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Re:
I can understand your frustration (and that of countless others) who aren't able to understand the accents of underpaid call-centre workers. But whose fault is it really? Is it their fault that they are trying to make a living for themselves? I'm sure they do the best that they can, including trying to learn how to understand *your* accent. If you're so miffed about it, start boycotting companies that have outsourced their support departments in order to let them know that you do not approve of their actions. Of course, if you own shares in a company that outsources and all that outsourcing makes you a tidy profit, you'd not really be complaining, right?
For years people have come to the melting pot that is America and worked hard there to achieve the 'American Dream', making money for themselves and America in the process. Now that the shoe's on the other foot, some short-sighted people are crying themselves hoarse. If the global economy has changed, adapt to it and instead of complaining so much about not having jobs in America, go to India/China and work.
Big Business will always look for a way to generate profit because it is the bottom-line that's King. Pretty soon, I'm sure the Indians and Chinese will start crying as someone else will come along and undercut their wages. Since we can't fight what's inevitable, let's all learn to roll with the punches and do the best we can; and that includes learning to live in peace with one another.
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Re: Re: how many anonymous coward's are commenting
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And before the negativity flies, yes, council members do use sarcasm, crack jokes, and make funnies on occasion. This is sometimes reported by journalists. I don't want to see a "walk the dog" comment show up in a newspaper as "Councilman Joe went off on a random tangent about walking his dog in the middle of a conversation regarding school funding."
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Outsourcing is good?
The U.S would be so much better off if that were the case...
I just wonder what country we could get to pay us not to work.
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Re: Outsourcing is good?
I just wonder what country we could get to pay us not to work.
With all these "free" trade happenings in foreign nations that's almost what the US is expecting. They want to outsource labor for cheap and then extend their own patent laws into foriegn nations. In essence the US government is taking the RIAA scheme to the next level by trying to set up the US to own as much IP across the world as possible and use the profits from that to pay for the cheap foreign labor.
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But now when a couple of Media jobs are going to India, it's a HUGE deal and threating our way of life!
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Here's a thought
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Oursourcing is bad !!!!
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Re: Oursourcing is bad !!!!
I can understand your rage. It's quite an insult that one who earns much will be equated with a foreign outsource. Who knows perhaps that person is equally as good as you are.
Time to be one's own boss. :)
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Outsource management too
Why stop with the reporters? Wouldn't it cost less to have the management overseas as well?
The entire newspaper back office aside from the printing and distribution could be handled overseas.
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I think its great
In particlar I can recall a certain PBS talk show on outsourcing and globalization. The show focused on the Bush Administrations efforts to assist the U.S. Steel industry in the face of foreign competition. One member of the panel of talking heads on this program was a self-styled 'liberal' female journalist who nonetheless opposed the governments' efforts as a form of protectionism. Additionally. she decried unrelated congressional attempts to stem IT outsourcing as further examples of protectionism which she was vehemently oppposed to. According to her, the only domestic workers worthy of government protection were coincidentally enough journalists. Indeed she provided a hypothetical scenario which such as in this story, although I think it was Canadian reporters who were outsourced. Of course, this struck me as extremely self-serving and outrageous.
As an outsourced IT worker, I can only say that this story provides me with a certain sense of satisfaction. I even wonder if the aforementioned woman is among the liberal journalists who are up in arms over this story. Ah, the irony.
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Why not?
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America, what's your choice?
This sort of thinking is currently making America not so great as it used to be...
Americans need to decide if they are capitalist, international citizens of the world and to Hell with the entire United States and everything and everyone in it - or if they are loyal, caring Americans first and money grubbers second.
So far, it seems the wealthy choose the former and the poor choose the latter. This does not bode well for the future.
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Sweatshop Reporters?
(mailto: editor@pasadenanow.com)
What a great idea PasadenaNow's management has had, to hire out reporting duties to contract "reporters" in India! This is a fabulous idea, and just in time to capitalize on the "Fake News" craze; but with a twist of its own. The hook here will be that, unlike "News" shows that slant or even make up news stories on behalf of a political agenda, you guys will be doing it for NO agenda at all; seemingly for the purity of misreported news itself. How bold! what a statement!
And what a brainstorm of a way to bring about that misreporting. It calls up echoes of Survivor and Lost, the "frision" of an alien landscape and cultural -- let's call it "co-dissonance" -- as Indian nationals, working cheaper than American reporters, cover Pasadena politics over a TV link to Pasadena's City Counsel meetings- and write it up as reporting.
Think of the possibilities! On one episode, you can have the contract reporters frustrated, because they don't know what anyone is talking about, despite having learned English in school and from movies. Finally, they figure out that a bond measure must be a special sort of a tailor or draughtsman, but they're still mystified as to why Americans number their tailors and vote on them, or pay them all that money.
Seriously, do you really think that watching people talk on TV and writing down what they say is all there is to reporting? That's transcription. A reporter needs to know not only what a bond measure is, but the history of similar measures over the past five or ten years, who fielded those measures or initiatives and why, and citizens' opinions of the outcomes of those efforts; in terms of how crowded the schools are now as opposed to five years ago, or whether traffic is worse or better.
Of course, you could bite the budget bullet, and just give the sweatshop reporters bottomless calling cards and a Pasadena phone book. Just remember, they'll say they're working for you, when they call city offices wanting to know why commercials are only shown in certain areas downtown, zoned for the purpose.
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In support of Erenreich
Her point was that, if the subsequent articles were not attributed to the overseas reporters (read: transcribists), they risk the same distortions Mr. Blair brought to his "reporting". Mr. Blair's worst sin, that he made up quotes, is secondary in a way to the bare fact that he was never THERE, in physical presence at the live locations and times he said he was; but had only viewed it on a screen, and reported (possibly quite faithfully) what he saw on that screen.
So what? So as to that facet of his reporting, it's fully appropriate to compare his method of "reporting" with that of the proposed sweatshop reporters. He wasn't there, and neither would they be.
If, as is common practice with newspapers (I don't know about the pasadenanow.com site), small articles don't get bylines, there would be no ready way for readers to tell that the reporters saw everything through a relatively fixed lens; heard nothing but officially miked sound; that they had no idea of what was happening in the halls and streets outside the counsel chambers (protests, blocks-long lines of commenters, whatever)
If Pasadena Now were to publish the articles without disclosure of their remote-viewing source, they would indeed create the same assumption in the minds of the reader, that Mr. Blair created in the minds of his readers -- namely, that the commentary was produced by someone who was in the location, and witnessed the events. Would you be satisfied with that sort of masquerade, or would you want to know the provenance of the commentary?
That was Ms. Erenreich's point, as I took it. That's why she asks, in her article, if they are going to but it under a Delhi byline when they publish it. I think that might affect how people take it, in the Valley.
I say it's too bad the site put the plan on hold. It would have been fun to watch the fallout.
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