Note: A draft of this post has been sitting on my desktop for a few months, but in light of even more journalism offshoring news, I thought I’d polish this up and hit the publish button.
This interesting article on Poynter has me thinking.
As more technology is available remotely and we’re trying to more things with fewer people, I’m going to predict that the offshoring of journalism jobs will suddenly explode – very soon.
It’s already happening in the print world. When are broadcasters going to follow suit?
Here’s my prediction list for broadcast jobs that will be offshored:
Centralcasting
More companies will start centralcasting their TV signals, with the staff for the centralcasting facility residing overseas. When everyone knocks down their sticks in 20 years because IPTV has taken over, this will further reduce the number of engineers at local TV stations and increase the number of IT staffers.
Community-generated content editing
As community-generated content becomes more prevalent, the moderating of incoming user-generated content is handled overseas. This includes a ton of stuff the public sends — video, photos, stories, etc. In order to offer a good user experience, you can’t auto post everything that comes in the door. This also includes getting rid of those pesky in-story spam/flame comments.
Video editing
Non-editorial (or low-level editorial) video editing tasks could be simplified and moved overseas. Logistically, things are on server, so no barriers there. Producers add editing instructions to the script file, which the overseas editor can see. The producer can also communicate with the editor via phone or IM.
Content repurposing
Media outlets are trying to figure out how to put the same content on multiple platforms – TV, web, cell, iPods, PSP, PDA, belt buckles (ha ha ha), etc. Until technology has caught up, humans still need to edit down stories, especially text, for additional formats.
Asset management
Effectively warehousing data is the future of the media (information!) industry. Playing librarian then selling the content is the new name of the game. Why not move data warehousing organization overseas? Perhaps the storage lives in the US and other co-location facilities, but the management is done remotely.
User feedback
Right now, many local media outlets, especially TV stations, see interaction with the public, like feedback messages, as secondary. Local TV stations usually let viewer calls flow into an already-busy newsroom, and emails are treated in the same way – do it if you have time. Soon enough, thanks companies that specialize in customer care, media companies will pay to tally and categorize feedback. Companies will realize that in a post-Nielsen ratings world, it’s extremely important to know what the public thinks.
Graphic design
Already centralized for some US companies, this would be offshored for daily, routine productions like local TV newscasts.
Ad production and scheduling
For those advertisers who aren’t big on creating their own ads, they will fill out a form with their ad rep and the form will be sent overseas where the order will be fulfilled. (This seems like it would already have been offshored by now…Perhaps I just don’t know of an example.)
The ad scheduling (traffic) end of the equation is a natural progression. I’d figure this would be handled by a firm that would also have sophisticated analysis tools to schedule ads on multiple platforms.
Copy editing and fact checking
A handful of newspapers are already doing this. One of my pet peeves when it comes to local broadcast journalists posting news on the web is many don’t have copy editing – period. I predict newsrooms will begin employing copy editors, though those copy editors will live overseas.
What are your thoughts? Have additional items for the “what if” list? Please add them in the comments section.