Confirming the Telegraph’s plans to outsource some of its sub-editing operation to Australia in comments on Jeff Jarvis’ blog, Ed Roussel, digital editor of Telegraph Media Group, made the following statement:

“Reducing the cost of manufacturing and distribution is an imperative for any newspaper group that is determined to remain profitable, as we are (…) The principle holds true on the digital side. ITN creates our video content, providing quality and value that we would struggle to generate internally; Brightcove handles our video distribution; Google powers our search; Escenic provides our web publishing tool; we use software developers in Bulgaria and India.

“Newspaper-web companies should focus internal resource on what they do best: creating premium editorial content.”

Similar to Jarvis’ own mantra of ‘do what you do best and link to the rest’, Roussel’s ‘outsource the rest’ makes sense in a journalism industry where partnerships and collaboration, especially online, seem to be the way forward.

So, outsourcing – not all bad?

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UK broadsheet the Daily Telegraph has outsourced some of its production work to Pagemasters, a company based in Rhodes, western Sydney.

The company, owned by news agency Australian Associated Press, will copy edit and layout raw copy for the Telegraph’s travel, motoring and money pages as well as parts of The Sunday Telegraph.

The move is intended to “save on night and overtime penalties for workers in Britain and get more expensive staff off its books”, writes the Herald. Full story…

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The CEO of MediaNews Group, Dean Singleton, told the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association this week that his company is exploring outsourcing options, including the possibility of a single news desk for the company that could be offshore.

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ITV chairman Michael Grade has said third parties could be paid to provide ITV with its regional news programmes.

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Senior executives at have told the New York Times that CBS TV news, one of the leading news broadcasters in the US, is mulling over a possible deal to outsource some of its news-gathering operations to CNN.

Tlaks about such plans aren’t new, says the report, however recently they have intensified to detail how CBS would ditch its news-gathering capacity but keep its frontline personalities, like Katie Couric, the CBS Evening News anchor.

It would then take a feed from CNN and pay it regular fees.

Another possibility would see CBS hang on to some reporters in key regions but pair them with CNN crews.

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