Saturday, November 11, 2006

Passage to India

Joe Grimm takes up the issue of outsourcing the copy desk with a smart post on Poynter. (I touched on this topic back in July but Joe, as always, has some good thoughts.

(Note that Doug Fisher had an equally good posting back in September.)

From Joe: Anyone with a good job would fight to keep it. Fighting change may be futile. The smarter fight lies in developing the skills required to make yourself not only more essential but more satisfied and competent in the work you want to do.

That makes sense to me. So, copy editors, what's your plan? If you're not on the cusp of retirement, what should you be doing now to prepare for the future?

What I see wrong with this outsourcing idea--losing local knowledge, having a finely tuned sense of language and an awareness of community standards--simply doesn't seem to be important to many newspaper owners, determined to cut costs, "content" and quality.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm convinced this is the beginning of the end.

As soon as I saw that, I made up my mind to work on a five-year exit strategy from this industry. I don't think the climate in Mumbai would be good for my asthma.

Jim Thomsen

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