Unions Fight Offshoring, Blogs
By Kevin
The MSM critique of bloggers as semi-literate, pajama-wearing, second-rate hacks is usually taken to be a threat to the professional ethos of journalists. But the sad truth for an investor in MSM is that blogs are reconfiguring business models, and adaptation might require organizational change, including the devil called outsourcing.
But once the unions get involved, it's no longer just a threat of questioning professional standards, but of threatening vested financial interests.
In fact, Reuters implicitly admits that bloggers have a locational and tactical advantage -- they're local, and their means of news gathering when not local is the same as any reporter:
Schlesinger also said he was offended by the guild's suggestion - which the union has denied - that American journalists are superior to their foreign counterparts. The wire service remains committed to "on-the-ground reporting, but some stories can be done very well by telephone or by reading something on the Internet," he said from India.