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CHAUTHAKHAMBA_Media outsourcing attracts ire of US brigade

Media outsourcing attracts ire of US brigade
Ravi Menon in Bangalore

June 03, 2008 13:24 IST

For instance, a digital advertising contract between India's second largest IT services provider Infosys Technologies and a major American newspaper group is threatening to become a rallying point for the brigade to regroup and renew attacks on outsourcing of management information systems (MIS) and key operations-related work to India.Infosys Technologies, according to sources, signed an advertising outsourcing deal with Missouri-based Kansas City Star sometime last month. The daily, a part of the McClatchy Company that also publishes the Miami Herald, will outsource advertising production work for its new media/digital business to Bangalore.
An industry source claimed that City Star would be outsourcing its entire digital advertising team to Infosys [Get Quote]. "While the deal is not substantial in terms of payback, over the next three to five years, City Star has been looking at gaining the economy of scale in its production set-up over the past year by outsourcing digital media production across a few of its publications to different vendors," the source said.
On the daily's website, City Star President and Publisher Mark Zieman said the move is expected to reduce the number of employees in the newspaper's advertising services department by up to nine.
"Given the historic transformation going on in our industry, the Star must continue to find ways to run more efficiently in every area," Zieman wrote, adding that all creative work for print and online advertisers would continue to be handled inhouse. "Of course, our advertising customers will continue to interact with our local sales and design representatives," Zieman said.
Zieman did not respond to an e-mailed questionnaire on the deal. An Infosys spokesperson, when contacted, refused to elaborate on the terms and duration of the agreement with the Star, saying that the company does not respond to queries on individual contracts.
Infosys is not the lone vendor in this case. Holdings of McClatchy, the third largest media conglomerate in the US, include the Miami Herald, the Star Tribune, Sacremento Bee, and the Raleigh News & Observer.
The first three dailies have outsourced a part of their advertising production to Express KCS, which runs a production centre in Gurgaon. A few publications owned by MediaNews Group Inc, including the San Jose Mercury News, are known to be among KCS' customers.
In February this year, publishing company Gannet Co Inc outsourced digital ad production work for group newspapers Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, and Press & Sun-Bulletin, among other papers, to 2AdPro, a division of Bangalore-based content services vendor Ninestars Information Technology Ltd. Ninestars has global delivery centres in Chennai and Kancheepuram with software development and R&D work done out of Bangalore.
Earlier, The Miami Herald and San Francisco Chronicle, a Hearst Communications Inc publication, briefly flirted with the idea of outsourcing a substantial portion of editorial design work, including copy editing and page layout, to New Delhi-based Mindworks.
Both were quick to drop the plan in the face of stiff opposition from their rank and file, and hyperventilation on the topic from the local press. Now, it's the turn of advertising executives, ad production designers and graphic artists to quake in their shoes at the thought of their jobs getting outsourced to India.
The global market for multimedia digitisation services, which includes digital advertising production, currently stands at $2 billion, growing at over 30 per cent annually, according to experts. Indian companies are targetting an addressable market of 8-10 per cent by 2010. Not big by the hefty software exports target of $50 billion for that year, though a good handle for the outsourcing doomsayers to clobber Indian tech vendors with.
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jun/03bpo1.htm

CHAUTHAKHAMBA_The problem that is the media

The problem that is the media
T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan

Between 1980 and 1997, I was a full-time journalist. Since then I have been a columnist for this newspaper. This takes up, on average, about three hours a day. In the remaining time, I do a bit of this and a bit of that and it is great fun.
But since my primary identity has been of a journalist, it is not surprising that people should complain to me about the media as if I can do something about it. Initially, I would defend my professional colleagues as being more sinned against than sinning. But not any longer because I think the journalists have a lot to answer for.
So I have decided to devote this article to the media, for two reasons. The first is that 11 years is a long enough time for me to be able to stop defending my former professional colleagues. Second, in the last few months, there has been a steep increase in the number of times people have voiced very deep dis-satisfaction with the media.
Thus, when people complain, it turns out very quickly that they are complaining about television. Print is usually less complained against.
Second, if you ask enough questions, it turns out that most of the complaints are occasioned by irritation rather than a factual mistake in reporting. That perhaps explains why there are fewer complaints against print, which irritates no one except those about whom it has got the facts wrong. They, of course, are incensed but it is only by chance that one gets to meet them when they are really angry. Some, of course, phone to protest.
Third, in the financial press � about which I can claim to know something � it is not mala fide (as is often assumed) but plain old fashioned ignorance that lies at the heart of the problem. This is not to say there are no bent journalists. But they are far fewer now than a decade ago.
Ignorance manifests in some strange ways. For example, a day before the RBI increased the interest rates, the largest circulated newspaper in the country reported that no such thing was even being contemplated. And when the increase was actually announced, the reporter on the largest-viewed business channel just lost it, saying the RBI had misled the markets because it had said that it "soothing" things just the previous day. Recently, a well-reputed newspaper carried a report on page one that every dollar that India accumulated between April and June cost it Rs 169 per dollar. The actual figure was less than Rs 43.
Fourth, there has been a staggering increase in the number of publications, and with it, a corresponding increase in the number of columnists, that is writers who have a fixed space reserved for them in the publication. The result is that persons with very little understanding, leave alone comprehension, have become pundits, writing pretty much what they please. (Many people believe I am one of them but a pox on them).
Fifth, with only a few exceptions, there has been a general devaluation of the editorial. Few papers ever took them seriously but now in most newspapers it has become just one more hole in the page to be filled. And, what is worse, many important newspapers, it has become a vehicle for airing the personal opinion of the editor, rather than that of some group or class interest, which is what the editorial used to do in the past. Two striking examples of this are worth citing.
One is the manner in which the nuclear deal has been written about by a leading newspaper from the south - India will become a US pawn in that country's battle against China. The other was the view, expressed repeatedly, in a BJP paper from Delhi that the exit of Nepal's monarch was a blow against Hindus, quite disregarding the fact that those who voted the monarch out were themselves Hindus. There has also been a steep decline in the intellectual quality of the persons charged with writing editorials because it costs so much to hire a clever, well-read and sensible writers.
Sixth, the proliferation of TV channels and its hit-and-run nature has meant the deployment of a vast army of the untutored persons who not only report the news but also, as they babble along, give opinions, usually in response to some inane question from the anchor. But, as I said, these persons are merely irritating. It is the print media that hurts more.
I can go on but the short point is clear: those who complain against the media have a much stronger case today than they did in the past. It is the media, particularly television, which has to take corrective steps. The policy only maximising viewership matters has resulted in people not watching the news as much as they used to - they read the ticker underneath instead.
In the old days they used to shoot the messenger who brought bad news. Now the messengers are shooting themselves.

Chauthakhamba

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Apne vichar rakhen achhe kal ke liye.
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