Pasadena by way of Bangalore
R obert Niles, the editor of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism review, has a nifty commentary about a publisher in his hometown of Pasadena who has decided to outsource reporting of city council proceedings to contract hires in -- Bangalore. As originally reported in Los Angeles Times , the move will allow web publisher James Macpherson of PasadenaNow to pay two reporters less than $20,000, considerably less than if he tried to cover the council from, oh, say, Pasadena. As easy as it is to scoff and start a office pool about when the first embarrassing gaffe will be published, this looks like an honest attempt to figure out how to cover important local stories that might not otherwise get covered by an enterprising "little guy" publisher. It's not so much the distance but the credibility of expertise that matters. But there are real things to worry about. It's not so much the distance but the credibility of expertise that matters. Anyone who has covered a large te...