I was thinking about this week’s topic in lecture: outsourcing. And I am not really sure how I feel about this. But I do think that from the business aspect of this, it makes a lot of sense to outsource to India. Because the whole point of business is to turn a profit and without outsourcing some newspapers might now be able to survive. However, that brings up the question of: is it really worth it to outsource just to stay in business? I think that the answer to this completely depends on who owns the paper and what their real motivations for being in the newspaper industry are.
Additionally, I think that when copy goes abroad there are a lot of things that stand in the way of it from being perfect. I think that because there are so many cultural differences and the way that people talk and form sentences in other countries is so different that it could cause a problem in editing. For instance, even though in both the United States and in England English is spoken, it is spoken differently. There are different words and terms used. So when the copy is outsourced something that might make sense in American may not make sense in another country.
Next, because the people who are doing the editing are in another country they will not be physically in the area that the article is being written for. And because of that a lot of mistakes can get into the paper. For instance, the example that was used in lab – I would not have caught those mistakes. And I don’t think that there is any way that someone now even from this area would even think to double check that information.
I know that there is currently a lot of controversy regarding this issue and whether or not it should happen. And I really do not know how I feel on this matter. Because I think that if the newspapers could find a way to make it work and be very successful then they should. Even though it really will lose a lot of American jobs, I think that this is just the trend that is currently happening in many businesses. I think that the newspaper industry is going to need to learn to change with the times and learn to survive in the current economy.
I believe the reason newspaper businesses should not outsource is because of what you said, when you pointed out that there are different words and terms used between the countries, which can lead to things being lost in translation. That seems to be enough to not want to outsource. After all, the English language is the newspaper businesses' main product. While you can outsource jobs that don't hinge entirely on English, you can't do the same for businesses that have that as their sole requirement.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this makes any sense whatsoever, but... making sure the language is spoken as best as possible should be the only priority; saving money can be found in other ways. Grammar should not be sacrificed in a field that is built around it.