Editorial outsourcing experiment dropped

The McClatchy-owned Miami Herald has decided not to experiment with outsourcing newsroom, editing and production of one of its publications to an India firm, though production of some of its advertising sections and the monitoring of website comments will continue. The Herald's executive editor wrote in a staff memo: "The more we looked at the prospects of editing and layout from outside the newsroom, the more it was clear these skills involving news judgment and experience are not likely to work well from afar."

Around here, "afar" could be as close as another paper in the company chain. To be sure, the good people who work at the "other" paper have the necessary skills in news judgment and experience, but let's face it, they have no connection to the communities "afar".

When the local is taken out of the local paper, the paper isn't local anymore.