Again, I'm expressing my naivety about the different factors of a newspaper business, but today's lecture about outsourcing copy editors was interesting and something that I never considered possible.
The idea of outsourcing is not a new concept to me; half the calls I make to "Customer Service Lines" get directed to someone overseas. Once, I even had a five-minute discussion with someone from the Philippines, who asked me where my parents were from and forgot about helping me with my Mac. Come to think of it, I don't even know who she figured out I was Filipino over the phone.
Anyway, outsourcing those types of jobs make sense; businesses that distribute their products throughout the country and nation-wide don't need to keep their jobs within the country, necessarily.
However, I feel that the newspaper industry should not jump on the bandwagon and outsource jobs. A newspaper, for the most part, is not a product that that is distributed throughout the country and read by millions of people (unless it's the New York Times, etc.). And, unlike a book – which someone brought up in class to compare to newspapers – newspapers are filled with content about the local community and read by that same target audience. I feel that it ruins the quality of a newspaper somewhat if someone from outside of that area edits content about places and events that they might never have even heard. It would be tough enough for a copy editor from the News-Gazette in Champaign-Urbana, for example, to edit copy for a newspaper in Kissimmee, Florida. The further the job gets outsourced, the harder it will become.
I think the reason this was even considered a possibility is because some people may not consider how important the job of a copy-editor is and how, just like reporters, it's necessary for a copy-editor to be familiar with the environment in which he or she works.
Roy Peter Clark acknowledged that copy-editors are usually the "last line of defense" and I don't understand why newspapers would want to risk that by outsourcing that "protection".
It's appealing to me that outsourcing can save so much money. But for journalism, it's just not worth it. Journalism prides itself on accurate news (or at least it strives to do so). What would that say about the field if credibility and accuracy were compromised to save a few bucks? It's just not worth it.
ReplyDeleteOutsourcing copy editing is a horrible idea in my mind. As we talked about in lecture, there's so many local things a copy editor needs to understand to do his or her job well. You lose that if you outsource copy editing to another country. Also, language is the key to journalism, and I don't think there would be enough copy editors in India, for example, that understand the English language as well as the copy editors that newspapers have now.
ReplyDeleteI think you brought up a good point about outsourcing that I hadn't really considered: that outsourcing happens in many other industries and it works just fine. However, I must agree with you, Stephanie and Cody that outsourcing and copy editing just do not mix. I think it would be nearly impossible to copy edit accurately when you are half the world away.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. I think that there are some industries that should be outsourced because it is better for business and since the whole point of business is to turn a profit, outsourcing is actually beneficial. However, I don't think that outsourcing news material is a good thing. I think that there are so many little mistakes that can get it and cause problems that I think makes it not worth it. I mean I understand that this may be saving the newspapers a lot of money, but is that really worth the mistakes and the criticism from readers? I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteI feel that outsourcing is a double-edged sword. It is always helpful and hurtful at the same time. I think double-edged sword is the right metaphor here? But, yeah, it's great for the business owners, the corporations, because they're turning in huge profits by undercutting labor costs through outsourcing. But at the same time, these businesses are hurting American workers because jobs that could have gone to Americans are going overseas leaving Americans jobless. It's also hurting the people in other countries because, while they now have jobs and their own country isn't losing any money in costs to employ them, they are not making good money and are often working in terrible conditions (we've all heard of sweatshops). Outsourcing is just a greedy venture to make the rich richer, and now that pretty much all newspapers are owned by corporations, guess what's happening!
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