Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)

Mangalore, Nov 10: Up to 30 Journalists have been made redundant in News International’s TV listings department after much of the work was outsourced to Press Association, which is having this work done in the city.

This is in-fact the first British newspaper department involving journalists to be off-shored, according to NUJ national organizer Barry Fitzpatrick. At least half of the staff losing their jobs is NUJ members.

According to News International, the majority of the work will be undertaken in PA’s Howden office in Yorkshire and a “minority of pre-press work will be carried out at PA’s offices in India”, including layout and formatting. The redundancy process began in June and is due to end within the next two or three weeks.

Tony Watson, the press association editor-in-chief informed that the PA group has signed an agreement with News International to provide page-ready TV listings pages for the company’s national newspaper titles. Elements of the work will be carried out at the group’s page production centre’s in Howden and India.

The Indian production centres provide TV listings, page-ready editorial services, weather panels, sports fixtures and results, games and crosswords and archived picture captioning.PA has two production centres in India, one in Mangalore and another in Pune. All operations are overseen by senior PA executives who have relocated to India.