Reuters moves to India in a big way

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Financial news and information giant Reuters announced it would shift 50 per cent of its data operations to India and add 860 workers by the end of next year. [source]
This will change the look of Reuter’s work force considerably:
[Reuters] will eventually employ up to 10 per cent of its workforce in India …The move is part of the information giant’s “Fast Forward” programme, which aims to cut staff numbers by 3,000 to 13,000 in a bid to drastically reduce costs. [source]
While Reuters is enthusiastic about Indian tech workers, they seem to be less interested in India’s journalists:
The Bangalore centre will also employ a small number of journalists who will report on company news coming out of the United States, though Reuters has stressed that the 20 Indian journalists are not replacing any US workers. [source]
Personally, I’m waiting for the news industry to outsource their anchors to India. I mean, you can get any skin color and any version of an american accent you want in India. Even simulated American anchors would be no less real than the plastic faces that sit behind newsdesks now, and they would cost alot less. Given that the evening news has shrinking ratings and usually loses money, why not make the changes where they count?

2 thoughts on “Reuters moves to India in a big way”

  1. I wonder if Reuters will now face pressure to repeal their explicit policy retaliation by crazy fundamentalists?

    the policy of our Editorial group to avoid using emotional terms such as “terrorist” in their news stories. This policy has served Reuters and, more importantly, our readers well by ensuring access to news as it occurs, wherever it occurs. As a global news organization reporting from 160 countries, Reuters mission is to provide accurate and impartial accounts of events so that individuals, organizations and governments can make their own decisions based on the facts. Nonetheless, in an internal memo reminding our journalists of our policy in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, a statement was made that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” This wording caused deep offense among members of our staff, our readers and the public at large, many of whom felt this meant Reuters was somehow making a value judgment concerning the attacks.

    Of course, al-Reuters realizes full well that choosing to avoid the use of the word terrorist is just as value-laden and emotional a decision as using it in the first place.

    Perhaps the Indians at Reuters will start tilting this policy in the opposite direction w.r.t. Pakistani terrorism, and slowly turn this ship back towards starboard (it’s been leaning hard port for a while…)

    Or perhaps they’ll be culled from the Arundhati Roy set…

  2. GC: I wonder how old the policy is? With some news agencies, these policies go back to the cold war, when it wasn’t in the US interest to have their allies (like UNITA or Renamo) described as terrorists either.

    With the BBC, which has had a similar policy for a long time, they always follow it up by describing the actions of the group, including murder of young children through a bomb. They just wont label a group, only particular activities.