Uh-Oh

I have this longstanding, but also fairly obvious, joke about how someday soon all of us working in this here game are going to be replaced by low-wage Bangladeshi pundits. Now, at last, that day seems to be inching closer as the Pasadena Now web site apparently posted an ad saying "We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA."

This does strike me as somewhat weird since local news reporting would seem to be less outsourceable than many other forms of journalism. For punditry and so forth, it does help to be here in The Nation's Capital, but it's really not all that helpful. Most of any pundit's information comes from reading the newspaper and the newspapers are all online and readable from India or wherever.

Comments

Jean Raspail predicted that India would be the downfall of the West. India is the West's Trojan Horse. Beware of Indians seeking alliances!

Posted by Patriot | May 11, 2007 11:55 AM

I've had my kvetching outsourced to India. Indian kvetching not only cheaper, it's much more polished and musical.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 11, 2007 12:04 PM

This seems like a ploy for attention. I can't imagine what these people in Pasadena could possibly gain by hiring people in India instead of low-cost, just out of college American reporters. The Indian might get paid half as much, but it would take him twice as long to cobble a story together when he's starting from zero knowledge about Pasadena, and he has to do absolutely everything via phone and e-mail. Plus, people in the community aren't going to tell him anything good.

Posted by too many steves | May 11, 2007 12:06 PM

Cheap, third-world labor is being used to drive down American wages

http://www.bluedogdemocrats.us/

Stop outsourcing! Stop the invasion!

Posted by Blue Dog | May 11, 2007 12:15 PM

Being a rational consumer I would certainly abandon this blog for a cheaper outsourced blog.

Posted by ChrisB | May 11, 2007 12:20 PM

Krugman claimed that being outside DC helped his reporting on national politics. Not quite the same because many have DC bureaux, but many foreign papers have arguably better reporting on US politics than US newspapers, also because they're outside the social and interest group pressures of DC (tho they do sometimes make foolish errors). So bring on the Indian Pasadena blogger! She might shake things up.

Posted by otto | May 11, 2007 12:27 PM

I have this longstanding, but also fairly obvious, joke about how someday soon all of us working in this here game are going to be replaced by low-wage Bangladeshi pundits

preach it! we work for food!

Posted by razib | May 11, 2007 12:41 PM

It's not that hard at all to yak all day long about places and things you don't know about or have never been too...Goggle Earth. No problem.

Posted by bobbywally | May 11, 2007 12:58 PM

someday soon all of us working in this here game are going to be replaced by low-wage Bangladeshi pundits.

I thought that's why the punditocracy hates bloggers ... 'cause we're essentially punditing for free (or for ad revenue or based on an NPR/PBS "pledge drive" model) -- can't get more low wage than that, until you get a job that allows people to nick-name you "Big Media Matt" ;)

Posted by DAS | May 11, 2007 1:07 PM

I'm guessing this is partly a joke. There is a decently-sized Indian population in and around Pasadena (with JPL there and all). When I lived there, just about every Miss Pasadena / Miss La Canada or whatever was an Indian-American teenage girl. Or maybe they overlearned the lesson of the New York socialite/gossip site run by an Indian-American student in rural Illinois from his dorm room.

Posted by Reality Man | May 11, 2007 2:07 PM

"I've had my kvetching outsourced to India."

No, no, no....

While punditry is best outsourced to India, your kvetching should be outsourced to Israel.

Posted by Njorl | May 11, 2007 2:30 PM

It is no secret that Indians hate the West and hope to see its destruction.

I used to work with Indians who regularly would speak (approvingly) of killing off all the whites.

Indians have a major inferiority complex, and every white person is just a reminder of their inferiority.

Posted by Old Right | May 11, 2007 4:51 PM

If it produces acceptable results, I'm have no doubt that the process of outsourcing reporting will become widespread.

My feeling, though, is that to produce meaningful analysis and reporting on US issues, a reporter has to have lived in the US for several years (which was true for one of the Indian reporters hired to report on Pasadena.) I'd imagine the pool of possible applicants is therefore pretty small.

Posted by James Gary | May 11, 2007 6:42 PM

Now is not the past or the future, it is just now.

Trying to predict the future based on extrapolations of now is almost always a losing bet.

My guess, the massive US trade deficit will eventually crash the dollar (much more than it has already fallen vs the Euro).

The currency peggers, like China, most of Asia, and, for reasons I don't understand, middle eastern oil exporters, temporarily keep the dollar afloat.

Eventually that will end.

Eventually, a lot of the jobs moving offshore will end up moving back. That will probably be messy.

Posted by Mark | May 12, 2007 12:21 AM

Interesting, I would love to see them fall in stumble while attempting to report on US culture and social issues; racism? Oh please. Half of them think slavery was a good thing (Souza) or ended in the 60's.

Somethings must remain the domain of those born in bred in that country.

Posted by Henry Bemis | May 14, 2007 8:19 AM