Not a fan of the move to Indian pagination hubs

 I know that more and more smaller newspapers, as individuals, or smaller newspaper groups, have been moving to a pagination hub, or even just a couple of individual paginators serving four or five weeklies or semiweeklies. I "get" that, though I'm not a total fan of papers that are still triweekly or more in print outsourcing.

I'm not at all a fan of "community" newspapers outsourcing overseas.

I call ethical hypocrisy, in fact. This, to me, basically spits in the idea of community-mindedness in general.

But that's just one issue.

I know the hedge fund chains aren't passing on any of the actual or alleged savings to remaining employees. What about smaller companies?

Also, part of the "tout" of Indian pagination hubs is that, since they're halfway around the globe from the US (setting aside daylight time, India is 11 1/2 hours ahead of US Central Time) you can work this to your advantage. Well, only if you're further exploiting them. Let's say you send a Google Doc or whatever with pagination info at 8 a.m. It's already 7:30 p.m. over in Mumbai or wherever. Assuming there's not a whiz kid knocking out six pages an hour, and also assuming there's not three people working on your, say, 12 page triweekly at the same time, you're not getting it back until 10:30 p.m. their time. Then, you're doing markups and edits, and expecting their changes? They're not going to be done until midnight Indian time or later. And, they're not getting paid for that late work.

Related? The people who do this work probably don't have the best English-language skills within Indians. People at the top of that food chain aren't working in jobs like this over there.

And, if you ever have to talk on the phone with them? Good luck with that Indian-accented English. All of this is sand in the gears.

In turn, if you have to work around their time, or they have to work around your time, and your press time? Even if you're a triweekly, you're going to have semi-stale news in the print version. Absolutely so, relative to what things would have been like before, if you're still a small daily.

So, this is an argument for further cutting your print days a week. But, that gets back to the bottom line.

So, are you really saving that much money?

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That said, a lot of this isn't that new; it's just accelerating. 

Nearly 20 years ago, an online-only "newspaper" was outsourcing local government meeting coverage to Indians watching streaming video from the city, county and school boards meetings, with local governments big enough to be streaming their meetings that long ago. The Miami Herald was doing this not much later.

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And, beyond the general professional angle? Three of four jobs for which I have had first-round interviews in the last 7-8 months do, or were moving to, an Indian pagination hub.

New Zealand’s top daily outsourcing Sunday production

Things like this show I’m in a dying profession:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- Newspaper publisher APN News & Media began outsourcing editorial production work on Sunday, a plan that will be extended to five daily and three weekly newspapers by year end, a senior executive said.

The changes mean news editing and layout operations at The New Zealand Herald, the nation’s biggest daily, and a string of regional dailies will be done by an outside contractor, APN deputy chief executive Rick Neville said.

“I’m confident readers won't notice the difference” in the papers’ editing and design, Neville said.

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union that includes New Zealand journalists, however, said the move will erode the quality of news coverage because stories will be handled by copy editors not familiar with local issues. ...

By year end, Pagemasters will employ about 45 editing staff at their site to edit the seven newspapers - nearly 30 fewer than the newspapers employed.

Journalism is now being outsourced to India

No, this is NOT a joke.

The New York Times It is pretty freaking scary, though.

When is local journalism not really local? When it's about Pasadena and written by someone in India.

James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the Pasadena Now website, hired two reporters last weekend to cover the Pasadena City Council. One lives in Mumbai and will be paid $12,000 a year. The other will work in Bangalore for $7,200.

The council broadcasts its meetings on the Web. From nearly 9,000 miles away, the outsourced journalists plan to watch, then write their stories while their boss sleeps — India is 12.5 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time.

"A lot of the routine stuff we do can be done by really talented people in another time zone at much lower wages," said Macpherson, 51, who used to run a clothing business with manufacturing help from Vietnam and India.

So, on the Indian version of Craigslist, he posted an ad that said in part, “We do not believe that geographic distance between California and India will present unsurmountable problems, and that working together with you will result in your development of a keen working knowledge of this city's affairs.”

Dozens replied. One of the two chosen had attended the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Rob Gunnison, the director of school affairs there, is dismayed. “It just seems so fundamental to journalism to be there,” Gunnison said. “I still can’t quite believe it's not a hoax.”

The only consolation I can take from this at first glance is that this appears to be a Net-only “newspaper.”

Nonetheless, Prof. Gunnison is right. Even with something theoretically as mundane as a city council meeting, you can’t get emotional nuances from a webcast.