November 21, 2006 at 13:23India becomes the center of offshore journalism
Indian sites are full of vacancies: “A business journalist is required. The ability to work on night shifts (UK time) is welcome. ” In India, Singapore and other countries with cheap labor, a huge number of vacancies have appeared for “remote editors” who know English. All they need to work is Internet access. The so-called offshore journalism is becoming a fashion trend in the Western publishing business.
Now even medium and small publishers are trying to resort to outsourcing in order to reduce costs. As you know, the print media industry is currently experiencing difficult times : circulations are declining, advertising revenue is falling, so they have to count every dollar.
World Newspaper Associationacknowledged that outsourcing today "plays an important role in the newspaper industry." Actually, this is visible to the naked eye. Even in Russia today, many newspapers have employees who never visit the office. If the Hindus knew Russian, then probably half of Moscow journalism would have long moved to Mumbai.
In addition to editors, designers, photo editors and other creative professions are also outsourced. Among the customers are not only print media, but also online publications. The first large firms, such as Express KCS , which specialize in finding personnel for remote work in the field of journalism and publishing, have already appeared in India . Some of them even included quotes for writing texts in the general price list for remote work.
More than two years ago, the largest news agency Reuters opened a branch with 340 jobs in Bangalore, the center of Indian outsourcing. The branch performs one task: it gives out a stream of news about American companies based on their financial statements. This is standard news about corporate earnings, increase / decrease in profit compared to the previous quarter, etc. The Bangalore branch has proven itself so well that its staff has now been expanded to 1,600. Each employee receives five to six times lower wages than his American counterpart. True, not all of these people write about finance: after all, special software has now been released that copes well with financial journalism instead of a person.
Some Western journalists have become worried that their work is flowing abroad. But in fact, there is no reason to panic. This is a natural process, the development of which we observed in the field of software development. There, too, panic moods first appeared, and then the industry adapted and continued its normal development.
The fact is that only the lowest paid jobs that require the most unskilled labor are transferred to India. Thanks to this, professional Western journalists (as well as professional programmers before them) can get rid of the routine and do the real thing.
Now even medium and small publishers are trying to resort to outsourcing in order to reduce costs. As you know, the print media industry is currently experiencing difficult times : circulations are declining, advertising revenue is falling, so they have to count every dollar.
World Newspaper Associationacknowledged that outsourcing today "plays an important role in the newspaper industry." Actually, this is visible to the naked eye. Even in Russia today, many newspapers have employees who never visit the office. If the Hindus knew Russian, then probably half of Moscow journalism would have long moved to Mumbai.
In addition to editors, designers, photo editors and other creative professions are also outsourced. Among the customers are not only print media, but also online publications. The first large firms, such as Express KCS , which specialize in finding personnel for remote work in the field of journalism and publishing, have already appeared in India . Some of them even included quotes for writing texts in the general price list for remote work.
More than two years ago, the largest news agency Reuters opened a branch with 340 jobs in Bangalore, the center of Indian outsourcing. The branch performs one task: it gives out a stream of news about American companies based on their financial statements. This is standard news about corporate earnings, increase / decrease in profit compared to the previous quarter, etc. The Bangalore branch has proven itself so well that its staff has now been expanded to 1,600. Each employee receives five to six times lower wages than his American counterpart. True, not all of these people write about finance: after all, special software has now been released that copes well with financial journalism instead of a person.
Some Western journalists have become worried that their work is flowing abroad. But in fact, there is no reason to panic. This is a natural process, the development of which we observed in the field of software development. There, too, panic moods first appeared, and then the industry adapted and continued its normal development.
The fact is that only the lowest paid jobs that require the most unskilled labor are transferred to India. Thanks to this, professional Western journalists (as well as professional programmers before them) can get rid of the routine and do the real thing.