OJR: The Online Journalism Review

Jason Stverak: July 2010 archive

A new production model for news reporting: Outsourcing

July 8, 2010

When your cell phone breaks or your computer crashes you no longer expect to speak to a call center in the United States. Numerous companies have outsourced parts of their business operations to contractors in other countries in an effort to improve their bottom line and increase productivity. Regardless of the public perception of outsourcing jobs, there can be financial benefits. However, a domestic form of outsourcing now is reaching the struggling news industry. It was the topic of a recent Washington Post column by Howard Kurtz.

In The age of journalistic outsourcing, Kurtz argues that while traditional print media struggle, new journalism organizations, mostly non-profits, are “giving the restless and the jobless a second lease on life.” But why has it taken so long for the legacy media to realize the untapped potential of online non-profit organizations?

Many online non-profit news organizations have been around for decades. They produce quality investigative articles about a range of topics. They have been responsible for breaking news, exposing scandal and reporting stories traditional media miss. A new non-profit journalism organization seems to be appearing daily, and with that comes innovative reporting and a new approach to journalism. More...

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