Ay took er jerbs!!!

Especially disingenuous quote:

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."

Used to be that was called hiring a cub reporter. Either that or you could tap a kid at the local high school or college paper and offer them an internship, wherein they'd write up city council meetings, dog shows, soap box derbies, obituaries, and other stuff the real reporters didn't have time for.

This guy is just being cheap and lazy. Also, a bad reporter. It's a little frightening too, because it's setting up a scenario where journalism is less concerned with eyewitness testimony and getting the facts straight and more with providing space-filling copy. Oh, Dan, you starry-eyed young thing. Actually, that's been happening in journalism for years, ever since it journalism became a career as opposed to a vocation, or even a blue collar job.

This guy wants to improve the quality of local writing by farming it out to writers a world away? He probably has a few hundred local bloggers of some skill within a few miles of his office. My head, she spins like a gyroscope.