I don't really understand the objection, Mark. Were readers ever really interested in who was doing the copy editing?

The Engineering, Manufacturing and Printers union in NZ stated that outsourcing this way would undermine the quality of jornalism. I reckon the reader could notice more accuracy and a better read. Pagemasters NZ have hired the best people for the job. Maybe the Corrections column in the NZ Herald will drop down to two lines only.

@MV - It's not just the copy editing, it's that copy editing and design moves out of the newsroom. It just proves that this company sees copy editing and design as simple "production." Newspapers' print products are in a fight for relevance, and we don't win that fight if we take the process of putting the paper together out of the newsroom.

In my experience it can be a challenge to communicate and put together compelling content packages when the people you're dealing with are on the other side of the room. If they're in another building and part of another company? Forget it. Designers and copy editors need to be involved in the process from the start and not relegated to an assembly line at the end that mindlessly puts the pieces together.

I probably didn't get that because I'm a country editor who runs a newspaper out of the back of my car!

I've worked for daily newspapers before and I understand what you mean about the collaboration -- although most of the time we just fought and got pissy with each other.

Now I publish a tiny weekly and my office is about the size of a walk-in closet and everyone works remotely and everything is outsourced. All of our assignments are given given via e-mail, all of them are submitted back through e-mail, they're approved and forwarded to a copy editor in the next state. Any graphics are either purchased from a service or I use an artist in another timezone. The layout and typesetting is done in another state and I work with her via instant messenger, viewing pages on the printer's FTP site.

I'm not saying that's better -- it's simply the paradigm I find myself in. It's the only way I think we can make a profit because it's kept my costs way, way down. Yeah, I've gotten burned by it many times. Nothing is more frustrating than waiting on a graphic all night, only to get a cellphone call from the person sitting on the barstool next to your artist, somewhere in Brooklyn. And any layout or design issue that could have been ironed out using simple "point your finger at that spot" technology can take 25 minutes of instant messaging and uploading, but that's the way it goes and we keep getting better at it. Now when I type "do that thing with the thing and put the deal over by the deal" my designer knows *exactly* what I mean.

This example means nothing on this forum though and I realize that. We're just a community weekly and you guys are what I like to call "real newspapers!" :)

Copy editing and proof reading seems to be non-existent in many news reports on local websites. There is an excess of words, and a limit to the amount of factual, interesting detail. This is not necessarily due to distance proofing and editing, but due to carelessness in writing, in checking ms sent to the publisher. It can be frustrating, and is always irritating. Quality, please!

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mv you are obviously one of those semi-autistic accountants who think they can always turn a profit by churning out poor-quality crap that passes for newspapers today. Readers are not going to take it for much longer and advertisers will follow suit. I really do hope you guys get burn't during this recession. You may continue to remove cogs and springs and rejoice in the fact the machine still seems to work. The machine may not seize up. But it will eventually be discarded as useless. My question is: what the hell are the unions doing about the lack of rights and safegaurds for journalists paid bottons and forced to work long hours to keep pricks like MV in the pink?

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