HR Issues

The Sun and other News International newspapers could outsource part of their TV listings operation to India, as part of the company’s cost-cutting drive. News International is in talks with PA Solutions – a division of the PA Group, which also owns the Press Association wire service – about outsourcing its centralised listings operation, which supplies TV scheduling information to its four...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday approved the setting up of a new wage board to recommend the minimum emoluments and perquisites for working journalists. “Formal orders regarding this will be issued shortly by the labour ministry,” said a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). “Working journalists may be reassured that the prime minister has fulfilled the assurance he had...

To cut costs and try to adapt to a changing media marketplace, The Chronicle will trim 25 percent of its newsroom staff by the end of the summer. "This is one of the biggest one-time hits we've heard about anywhere in the country," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, in Washington. Eighty reporters, photographers, copy editors and others, as well as 20...

The world may be flat, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has written, but I always liked to think I was standing on a hill. Now comes the news that pasadenanow.com, a local news site, is recruiting reporters in India. The website’s editor points out that he can get two Indian reporters for a mere $20,800 a year — and no, they won’t be commuting from New Delhi. Since Pasadena’s city...

LOS ANGELES: A local news Web site's editor who hired two reporters in India to cover suburban Pasadena said he's been so overwhelmed by handling reaction to his plan that he had to postpone publication of their first stories. James Macpherson said he hasn't found the time he hoped to have to train one of his new staffers to cover Monday night's City Council meeting, which is shown live on the Web...

LOS ANGELES: A local news Web site’s editor who hired two reporters in India to cover suburban Pasadena said he’s been so overwhelmed by handling reaction to his plan that he had to postpone publication of their first stories. James Macpherson said he hasn’t found the time he hoped to have to train one of his new staffers to cover Monday night’s City Council meeting, which is shown live on the Web...

PASADENA, Calif: The job posting was a head-scratcher: “We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA.” A reporter half a world away covering local street-light contracts and sewer repairs? A reporter who has never gotten closer to Pasadena than the telecast of the Rose Bowl parade? Outsourcing first claimed...

When is local journalism not really local? When it’s about Pasadena and written by someone in India. James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the Pasadena Now website, hired two reporters last weekend to cover the Pasadena City Council. One lives in Mumbai and will be paid $12,000 a year. The other will work in Bangalore for $7,200. The council broadcasts its meetings on the Web. From nearly 9...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Facing revenue and circulation declines, the Star Tribune said Monday it would eliminate 145 positions, or about 7 percent of its work force. The cuts will include about 50 positions in the newsroom, the paper said, and a voluntary buyout program has been proposed to the Newspaper Guild, which represents newsroom workers. The paper said about two-thirds of the jobs to be...

The Denver Post on Monday extended voluntary-buyout offers to about 90 newsroom workers in a move aimed at trimming costs amid an industrywide downturn. The Post will accept as many as 37 buyouts by early June. The paper currently has about 268 workers in its newsroom. The offers come one year after The Post eliminated more than a dozen newsroom positions, also through voluntary buyouts...