Design and copy editing outsourced to India
I’m very familiar with the layoffs and buyouts our industry is going through — we’re quickly closing in on the 5,000 mark. So I knew it was only a matter of time before it happened: Copy editing and design jobs are being outsourced overseas.
For some time I’ve expected one of the larger newspaper companies to begin consolidating design and/or copy desks, but I thought McClatchy or Tribune or Gannett or Lee — or who ever — would turn over duties from one paper to another that was nearby. That could still happen. But for a month, The Orange County Register will turn over its copy editing and design to Mindworks Global Media. Mindworks’ headquarters is in New Dehli, India.
It took designers a long time to prove our place in the newsroom. We succeeded in proving that design was essential to today’s newspapers. Now how do we make sure we stay in the newsroom?
- Posted by Erica Smith at 10:48 pm / Permalink for this post
- Filed under: , newspapers, outsourcing
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You proved nothing of the sort. What was proved is designers are the dumbest people in the newsroom, and they should have been axed long, long ago.
Newspapers should have started their cuts in the design area.
I was already in mourning for the print and publishing industries and really didn’t need to see that now copy editing and design jobs are also being outsourced to India. I saw the handwriting on the wall in the mid ’90s, as bosses began to think secretaries using Word were nearly as good as trained editors using Pagemaker, and a lot cheaper. It ended with me losing my job in 1998 and, at the age of 55, being unable to find another in publishing. My heart goes out to those losing their jobs now.