Outsourcing will help a lot of newspapers

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If you haven’t been following the Carnival of Journalism, what have you been doing these past few days?

Nothing of importance I’m sure. I’m going to be commenting on all of the carnival posts in due time, but there is one that editors, managers and publishers should read over at Journerdism ASAP.

Will Sullivan blogged about how high tech freelancers are helping to fill gaps in new media teams at newspapers. Maybe, it’s just a sign of the times or a cold, hard reality, but most newspapers don’t have nearly enough technical talent. That’s not good news.

But many realize that they don’t have the budget or the mindset to hire the right people. So, instead of trying to find their own programmers or Flash developers or whatever, they outsource. It’s a good idea for many companies for a few simple reasons:

  1. All newspapers need to be making compelling digital content right now. If you don’t have the staff to do so right now, find someone who does. You can’t wait around to make compelling features until you have all the personal in place, which may never happen anyway.
  2. Some of the best talent is just too expensive. Newspapers do not pay well. That’s a fact of life. If you are really good with programming or Flash or another skill, you could get paid a lot more working for another company. Plus, many programmers and developers find working for newspapers to be very restricting, especially since their bosses are often extremely glib about technology and online journalism. Newspapers can’t compete with the money or freedom that technical people can enjoy elsewhere, but they can hire very talented people and companies on a per project basis.

If your company doesn’t have the talent or the knowledge to deploy that talent, top editors should strongly consider outsourcing to high tech companies that get the Web. Will sums it up well:

I think this can be a symbiotic relationship for both parties – papers and freelancers/agencies. The freelancer/agencies get more work, more freedom, don’t have to work in the traditional newsroom and get to avoid the cubicle “Office Space” life. Newspapers can combat their brain drain, get to do cool projects quickly and perhaps get some fresh, non-traditional ideas about information and storytelling in their newsrooms.

  • Marc Matteo

    I think this is almost as short sighted as “do more with less”.

    You cannot build a “symbiotic relationship” with a contract hire, not at the level that you need to move content quickly and seamlessly. Anything else is a stopgap.

    And since its hard to monetize “symbiotic relationships” and their intrinsic value, this stopgap will become permanent and you are stuck with not-quite-good-enough. Best not to go there in the first place.

    Look, newspapers have always risen to the challenge before them. Take photographers. The large daily I work at has something like 10 or 12 Nikon D2x cameras and is looking at replacing them with D3s. These are phenomenally expensive cameras. They could have gone with the far cheaper D200/D300 line but they didn’t. Something about quality and features.

    And that’s what this is about. When newspapers recognize that to get the quality and features they need they’re going to have to pay programmers competitively and have web savvy designers and whatnot there on staff they will.

    Those that don’t? Well you can be second rate for only so long, the market will not support that.

  • http://wmhartnett.com/ William M. Hartnett

    Not to repeat the comment I left on Will’s post here, but to repeat the comment I left on Will’s post here … Outsourcing in itself isn’t a problem. But outsourcing does not relieve us of the need to acquire and master all the skills essential to our future. Newsrooms that don’t make that commitment to their core mission aren’t going to make it, and all the contract workers and vendors in the world won’t change that.

    If some newspapers never acquire the personnel capable of producing compelling digital content, then those newspapers clearly will never have accepted the premise that compelling digital content is necessary. Inherent to accepting the necessity of it is accepting that a reassignment of resources must occur to make it happen. A newspaper that doesn’t acknowledge that connection has not accepted the philosophy of a truly digital future, and isn’t likely to see the value in that type of content simply because outsourcing it is, in the short term, a moderately better financial deal.

    Newspapers pay better than those of us who work for them seem willing to admit. No, entry level producers aren’t breaking the bank, but a top-to-bottom look at a typical newspaper’s editorial payroll might surprise many an ink-stained wretch. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary of computer programmers is $65,520 nationwide and $62,046 in Florida. That is hardly out of our reach.

    Bear in mind those are medians. Whether or not every newspaper needs the best technical talent, it’s simply a fact that every newspaper cannot have the best technical talent. Nothing new there. The Olathe News can’t afford to hire Guido van Rossum. Then again, they can’t afford to hire Barlett and Steele. Just as they manage to get by journalistically without the industry’s top investigative duo, they no doubt can afford programming talent adequate to their needs.

    I’d also suggest that any newsroom manager who decides that reassigning 1.5 reporter or copy editor FTEs to hire a programmer is a worthy investment isn’t likely to be extremely, or even moderately, glib about the work that person does.

    I’d further suggest, as I have on at least one occasion while successfully convincing a top-notch programmer to work with me, that being at the right newspaper is anything but restricting. Google’s 20 percent time, now that’s restricting. I’m offering 100 percent time, no joke.

    All of which is not to say that I don’t basically agree with you and Will that technical outsourcing can be an advantage. It’s just not a substitute for real investment in the skills necessary to our survival. If that investment isn’t happening at your newspaper (and I aim that “your” generally, Pat, not at you specifically), even as it spends on freelancers, then give me a shout!

  • http://www.patthorntonfiles.com pat

    Marc and William,

    I don’t disagree with you two over the pitfalls of outsourcing. I am, however, a hopelessly pragmatic person, and I feel that if newspapers don’t have the talent to do projects right now, they should find companies that do.

    Maybe this is just a stop-gap solution that should be combined with a fervent search for home-grown talent. But I think that the vast majority of newspapers, if not all, don’t have enough talent to do everything they need to do, especially large-scale projects. Rather than not doing those projects, they should work with companies that can.

    Ideally, every newspapers should put the time and resources into finding the proper technical talent. We all know this has not been the case. Many editors and publishers have been reluctant to replace copy editors and writers with producers or programmers. This is obviously short sighted, but it is a reality of life.

    I strongly disagree with both of you about funding. Maybe your papers, and indeed some of the bigger operations, still have robust budgets but from a lot of people I talk to in the industry, times are lean. Many graduates can look forward to making less than $25,000 a year at many newspapers. You can make more than that at a non-profit.

    I was offered around that sum of money from a 20,000+ daily newspaper right when I graduated to be a reporter AND help out on the Web. Needless to say I declined and took a real offer But how is a place like that going to possibly hire good technical people? I think the answer is clear.

    They won’t. Plus, many papers require their reporters to take photos too (not a bad idea in my opinion with online journalism), but these places are not buying top-of-the-line cameras. In some instances we are talking about non-DSLRs and lower-end DSLRs in better cases. This is hardly the stuff dreams are made of, especially when a lot of papers don’t train their reporters on how to be photojournalists.

    The reality is that many newspapers are in a hiring freeze, others do not offer raises that are even in line with inflation (many employees no longer get raises) and few are spending appropriate amounts on online journalism. I spoke with one editor in chief at a 30,000 daily and she told me she couldn’t get any funding from the owner to put into the Web site, despite the fact that he was spending $20 million on a new printing facility.

    Needless to say that paper will not be around in 10 years.

    I know this have turned into a bit of a rant, but I want to make it clear that I don’t disagree with you on what newspapers should be doing. It’s just that I know many aren’t doing what they need to be and many honestly cannot afford to hire the proper talent at this time.

    You two may work for employers that get it and hire the right talent and have the right mindset. The vast majority of us don’t, and that’s just the way it is.

    P.S. I’m the most technical person on the editorial staff at my paper, and I don’t have a comp sci degree or anything fancy like that. I’m more of a Web designer to this day, even as a try to become more of a Web developer. I’ve tried to get my paper to pair me with a dedicated programmer but to no avail.

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