Reuters takes outsourcing to a new level with journalists

Good news for some, bad news for others: journalists can be "outsourced" reports the New York Times and Jacques Steinberg. Indeed, Reuters plans to hire six journalists in Bangalore, India, to do basic financial reporting on 3,000 small to medium-size American companies.
Well, you begin with six journalists, but who knows how many they will be in the future?

Excerpts of the article.

"Outsourcing has become all the rage in recent years, and India has become a favorite destination for Western companies that want to send jobs to cheaper markets...

...Now, Reuters is going a step further... The six reporters in Bangalore will mostly be responsible for extracting basic financial information from company news releases and quarterly earnings reports. Tasks like interviewing a company president, talking to analysts and covering breaking news, will continue to be done by more experienced journalists working in the countries where those companies operate, Mr. Schlesinger said.

While the pilot project is intentionally modest, it is related to a much larger effort, announced by Reuters late last year, that will send about 200 of its data-entry jobs to Bangalore from England and the United States..."

The whole article on the NYT website.