Outsourcing newspaper copy editing to overseas points just won’t work, contends the American Copy Editors Society, notes Grumpy Editor.
ACES, a professional organization of copy editors, is stirred up by comments Monday from MediaNews Group, Inc. chief executive Dean Singleton, speaking at the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association’s annual convention in Aventura. Fla.
Denver-based MediaNews publishes the Denver Post, Detroit News and 52 other daily newspapers.
"In today's world, whether your desk is down the hall or around the world, from a computer standpoint, it doesn't matter," said Singleton, according to The Associated Press, where Singleton serves as chairman of the board.
“One thing we’re exploring is having one news desk for all our newspapers in MediaNews…maybe even offshore,” he mentioned.
ACES declares, “How often do we have to repeat this? Sending copy editing overseas is a sure way to kill a paper's credibility. Maybe not immediately, and maybe not in one dramatic gesture, but every time that desk 9,000 miles away overlooks some nuance that local readers will spot, the newspaper's credibility dies a little. Oak Lawn, Oak Cliff, Oak Park, Oak Hill? What's the diff? A lot, if you live in one of them.
“Some things just can't be measured in terms of money. It's easy to say that you'll save thousands of dollars by hiring overseas workers to edit your copy. It's not so easy to say how much that loss of credibility is going to cost you when they miss errors a local person would have caught. But cost you it will.”
ACES points out the importance of “collective wisdom of a locally-based copy desk with its inevitably diverse and quirky knowledge of the community.”
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