There is hardly anything odd about American information technology (IT) firms moving back office jobs to low cost destinations like India, but a California daily is recruiting journalists here to report what’s happening 12,841 km away in Pasadena. “We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA,” said a job advertisement posted on the Internet earlier this week.

While the industry has already seen some editorial jobs being outsourced to India, the latest one is sure to raise eyebrows, as reporting, that too on issues like city government and politics, is something that requires first-hand account and understanding of the local issues, said an industry expert. However, the daily Pasadena Now is confident the arrangement will work.

“We do not believe that geographic distance between India and California will present unsurmountable problems, and that working together with you will result in your development of a keen working knowledge of this City’s affairs. This will result in accurate and authoritative news reports,” Pasadena Now’s Publisher James Macpherson said in the job posting. “Due to California’s public access laws, virtually all relevant government documents and meetings are available on the Internet,” MacPherson said. In addition, the publication’s staff in Pasadena would record and photograph all the required meetings and interviews and send them to India through e-mail. “We propose to work closely with you to direct you to the issues, research, and references in order for you to carefully watch, analyse, and report upon the city’s affairs,” said the job posting. According to the Associated Press, Pasadena Now has already hired two journalists at a combined annual cost of $ 20,800 within two days of the job posting on May 7. Pasadena Now said that it would pay the journalists a 40- hour per week salary and recompense them for international telephone calls, while adding that the compensation would be commensurate with professional journalism pay levels for full-time employment of “Lead Reporters”.

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