ABC's take on the media crisis in Australia

Here are two Australian Broadcasting Corporation stories on the current Fairfax Media cuts and the general decline of the media industry.



1. 7.30 Report

Media industry in crisis as standards decline: Davies

Kerry O’Brien speaks with investigative journalist and author Nick Davies about his new book, Flat Earth News. Davies argues that journalistic standards are declining the world over as cost cutting and government pressures take toll on the industry.

Read transcript.
Watch video of extended interview.

2. Media Watch

Trouble at Fairfax

The rise of the internet and a slowing economy has led to the announcement by Fairfax that it will cut 5% of its workforce in Australia and New Zealand. Will these cuts come at the expense of journalism?

Read transcript.
Watch video.

Outsourcing subbing? Where else but India

Remember this company folks - Mindworks. It's one of the first Indian companies to do copyediting for US newspapers from India, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

Copyediting? Ship the Work Out to India

Not far from New Delhi, Mindworks now has eight overseas clients, and it's mounting a big effort to go after more U.S. publications
by Nandini Lakshman

In a squat, gray building in Noida, a leading outsourcing destination 15 miles from New Delhi, is the headquarters of Mindworks Global Media. Here, 90 young men and women peer into their computers, editing copy, designing and laying out pages, and even reporting over the phone. Mindworks isn't a new publication. It's a company to which media groups in Asia, Europe, and the U.S.—including the Miami Herald and South China Morning Post—outsource work that journalists and copyeditors usually do. The Mindworks staff works two to three shifts a day, seven days a week. Tony Joseph, 46, an editor-turned-entrepreneur, is Mindworks' founder and chief executive. He sometimes drops by at 6 a.m. to see his employees, just when U.S. clients are putting their papers to bed.

Mindworks has been handling outsourcing assignments from non-Indian publishers for four years. It expects plenty more business as the cost-cutting in U.S. and European print media grinds on. Some Western publishers do their outsourcing in-house—Thomson Reuters (TRI), for instance, has moved basic Wall Street reporting on U.S., European, and Gulf equities to a new bureau in Bangalore. But other media companies prefer to outsource to the Indians directly. On June 24, Mindworks made global headlines when the Associated Press reported that the company had taken on copyediting and layout work for a couple of publications owned by the California media publishing group Orange County Register Communications. MORE