Outsourced reporting from India, oh my!

I just got back from a trip and found printouts and clippings of this Associated Press story waiting for me on my desk. Apparently, a Web site has hired journalists in India to cover news in Pasadena (although now I see the publisher has postponed his plan because he's been so overwhelmed by the resulting media storm that he hasn't had time to train the new reporters).

How will these noncommuters from Mumbai and Bangalore cover the city government beat from the other side of the world? They'll watch the televised council meetings on the Internet and e-mail the stories they write after watching. And they'll do it for far less money than an American reporter would be paid.

I can't say it any better than Bryce Nelson, a University of Southern California journalism professor, who told AP, "Nobody in their right mind would trust the reporting of people who not only don't know the institutions but aren't even there to witness the events and nuances. This is a truly sad picture of what American journalism has become."