« April 2005 | Main | June 2005 »
May 23, 2005
Outsourcing Journalists: Another knowledge worker falls
A strike at BBC News over job cuts and oustourcing virtually shuts its news operations down. A full-page in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review protests a Reuters's plan to move all of its photo-editing operations to Singapore.
It appears that yet another set of American knowledge workers face an uncertain future in Thomas Friedman's "flat" world.
While a constant stream of U.S. technology workers lost their jobs to overseas counterparts in recent years, many of us in the journalism and creative media industries felt our jobs were safe (at least from outsourcing -- not necesarily from that old bastard "head count" concern).
Unlike programming and IT functions, our positions require top-notch writing and editing skills that Asian workers can't yet provide en masse, right?
Alas, what fools we were.
In addition to hatching a new plan to offshore its photo-editing department to Singapore, the British news agency Reuters has already "near-shored" its U.S. online reporting operations to Canada, and moved other news-writing positions to its Bangalore office.
Educated, English-speaking Asians are lining up to take your job (hey-not that I blame 'em).
Chilli Breeze, an India-based firm formed in June 2004, specializes in writing, editing, and publishing online content for Western companies.
I'm sure it's just the beginning.
The American empire is so going down, and its worker/consumer population (formerly known as "citizens"), will go down with it.
Educated American workers must constantly diversify their skill sets if they hope to have a job tomorrow. Only those who posess strategic combinations of skills (such as content- AND code-writing abilities) are likely to remain employed for the long term.
And yet, they should still expect to join the downward spiral in the race to the bottom. I mean, seriously, How long will it be before the voice-in-the-box that greets American drivers with "Good afternoon, welcome to McDonald's" is piped from a work station in Bombay? (UPDATE July 7, 2005: Okay, McDonald's is already on it.)
Links:
Chilli Breeze - Talented Indian writers serving global companies
Discover Diversity: Outsource Your Writing to India
CNN/Money, May 23, 2005: "Strike silences BBC news"
Newsday, May 17, 2005: "Union protests over outsourced news"
IndianTelevision.com, April 11, 2005: "Reuters' US scribes protest outsourcing to India"
Editor & Publisher, February 16, 2005: "Guild: Reuters Profits Jumped on 'Short-Sighted' Strategy"
Global Journalist, October 2004: "Outsourcing the Western Media
Outsourcing is journalism's newest labor issue, with hundreds of Reuters jobs moving to India by 2006. News agencies see it as cutting costs, but journalist organizations question the quality"
The Hindu, Sept 7, 2004: "Outsourcing journalism: Despite threats of legal action, Reuters Bangalore, continues with its expansion plans. Geert Linnebank talks about their local centre."
NewsForge - The Online Newspaper for Linux and Open Source, March 18 2004: "Builder.com outsourcing content production to India"
Associated Press, February 9, 2004: "Reuters to Hire Offshore Journalists to Cover U.S. Firms"
Posted by MJuhre at 01:04 PM | Comments (2)
May 19, 2005
Fight Club; Republicans come to blows on House floor.
A fistfight almost broke out between two Congressmen on the House floor this week over a debate over a bill to lift current limits on embryonic stem cell research (wow, that kind of thing is usually reserved for the South Korean or Taiwanese parliament!).
“Discussions about the bill yesterday became so heated,” reported Rachel Maddow on Air America Radio, “that colleagues had to intervene to stop what was about to become a physical altercation between two Republican Congressman.”
Yes, two REPUBLICAN Congressman.
“Rep. Rick Renzi (Ariz.) came close to a physical confrontation with Rep. Mark Kirk (Ill.) on Monday [sic Wednesday],” reported TheHill.com.
“Renzi started the exchange by saying he was upset that Republicans would poll in their colleagues’ districts without telling them.”
The bill, which has more than 200 co-sponsors, has divided House Republicans. It appears that, finally, moderate GOP members are starting to go head-to-head against their crazy, theocratic counterparts.
And stem-cell research isn’t the only issue to create cracks in the Republican mantle.
Former Congressman and conservative MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough said May 18 that he thought the “overconfident…swagger” of House Republicans may be about to end, after a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reported that only 33% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing. That number is lower than it has been since 1994, when Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” took the House out of Democratic hands.
The poll results come amid heated debate over the threat by Bill Frist and other Republicans to change Senate rules in order ram Bush’s judicial nominees through. Polls taken in recent weeks suggest most Americans disapprove of this so-called “Nuclear option” (as named by Trent Lott – bad call Trent: naming this after something that anyone over 25 links with the phrase “mutually assured destruction”?).
For the first time in years (at least, it seems to me), public opinion turned on Congressional Republicans in late March during the Terry Schiavo political/cultural media fest, when they overstepped their bounds by attempting to overrule numerous state judicial decisions with a Federal law (like they just started overstepping now…well whatever).
The unpopular nuclear-option threat comes right on the heels of Schiavo and it seems Americans would rather Congress spend its time figuring out how to keep the economy from going down the toilet altogether. So, it appears that for the first time in at least four years, the Republicans will be forced to either compromise (imagine!) or risk feeding the wrath of voters who might ream them a new one in the midterm 2006 elections.
Posted by MJuhre at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005
United Airlines Bailout Illuminates the Failure of Private Safety Nets
A brief editorial:
I can think of no better argument to support staying George Bush’s privatization and partial dismantling of Social Security than the May 11 bankruptcy court victory by United Airlines that allows the company to dump its pension liability onto the American taxpayer.
We hear from the Republican leadership time and time again that coffers are better managed by private rather than public hands.
But time and time again, we have seen the Federal Government -- that is, you, me and all American taxpayers -- have bail out corporate managements when they cannot or simply choose not to meet their pension promises to retirees.
The United Airlines default shows precisely why increasing the private management of pensions is risky not only to pension holders, but to taxpayers alike.
Posted by MJuhre at 02:39 PM | Comments (0)