A moment of your time, please…

• Scenario: You’ve been hired to report the events of the city government of Mumbai (Bombay) India. All you have to do is to tune in via the World Wide Web to view their meetings and conduct interviews. From there, you write about all of it to the local residents.
• Afterwards: So you’re ready to write your first article… but lacking any common frame of reference as to ‘why’ things are done as they are in Indian culture, all you can really do is to offer a very broken retelling such as would be the minutes from any meeting.
• Retrospect: Why in the hell did they hire you instead of someone who actually lives there and knows the culture and the people?

Now then, let’s look at the REAL story… a mirror image of the fictional one told above…

The job posting was a head-scratcher: “We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA.”

A reporter half a world away covering local street-light contracts and sewer repairs? A reporter who has never gotten closer to Pasadena than the telecast of the Rose Bowl parade?

Outsourcing first claimed manufacturing jobs, then hit services such as technical support, airline reservations and tax preparation. Now comes the next frontier: local journalism.

James Macpherson, editor and publisher of the two-year-old Web site pasadenanow.com, acknowledged it sounds strange to have journalists in India cover news in this wealthy city just outside Los Angeles.

But he said it can be done from afar now that weekly Pasadena City Council meetings can be watched over the Internet. And he said the idea makes business sense because of India’s lower labor costs.

“I think it could be a significant way to increase the quality of journalism on the local level without the expense that is a major problem for local publications,” said the 51-year-old Pasadena native. “Whether you’re at a desk in Pasadena or a desk in Mumbai, you’re still just a phone call or e-mail away from the interview.”

From “News site outsources local journalism”
- AP via CNN – 10 May 2007

Increase the quality? He’s kidding, right? No… and it’s not because he’s smarter than you.

The whole thing works like this…

It’s a free country. If you want to do something utterly stupid, that IS your right and we should all support the stupid in their efforts to broaden their stupidity. Aside from the pure amusement of watching them in action, it’s all a very good lesson for those who actually prefer to utilize common sense when approaching the task of problem solving. To wit: The stupid offer us a clear and defined image of exactly what to avoid.

God, in His infinite wisdom, placed among us worms and buzzards to clean the land of carrion. He also made the stupid to poke their fingers into light sockets, stand in the way of a stampede of bulls, skateboard on handrails, stick M&Ms up their nose… and to step into all the obvious dogpiles of life so the rest of us could have a laugh. But most importantly, they provide for us the perfect negative example.

Thank you God… thank you for stupid people.

Amen.

* * *