Will anyone listen to new controller?
What won what whereThree years after he got national attention and local criticism for outsourcing some local coverage of Pasadena to reporters working in India (and then in-sourced again), James McPherson says his new Pasadena Now web video channel will also hire in Asia. From this week's Los Angeles Business Journal (not online yet):
For his web TV station, he'll pay employees in India and the Philippines to sell advertising and edit video at wages as low as $4 an hour....Today, Pasadena Now employs five local "stringers" — Pasadena-based freelance reporters who attend events, take photos and conduct interviews — and five international writers who construct stories from the information provided by the stringers.
McPherson says he needs to go cheap in order to make a profit. He also cites competitive pressure from the AOL Patch sites that are opening across the Los Angeles basin. For what it's worth: in the three years since Pasadena Now first hit the news, I can't remember hearing a single thing about its content.
Patch note: Local editor Sara Catania said Friday on Twitter: "It's been seven months since the 1st West Coast Patch launched (in Manhattan Beach). With today's launch of Venice Patch the CA total is 32."