CNET acknowledged a plan to move some of the editorial work for Builder.com to India, according to this leaked memo confirmed by the editor who wrote it.

...with Q2 it appears my monthly article budget will be slashed dramatically. We're talking somewhere in the 40% range. Unfortunately article fees are the biggest discretionary items in our budgets so whenever they need to find a place to cut these are the biggest targets.

... And it gets worse. I hate to have nothing but bad news in this email, however they want me to try outsourcing some of our content. So we are currently negotiating a trial period with an outsource editorial firm in India (yes, India).

I just finished my most lucrative month ever as a freelance writer, so I won't be writing any weepy columns about this on Salon yet. But I think Jon Udell is right:

Protectionism is the wrong approach ... but let's not kid ourselves. What's at stake here isn't just call-center jobs, or mind-numbing code-writing jobs, or accounting jobs. Creativity, innovation and hard work are the levers that move the global economy, and anybody, anywhere, will be able to grasp those levers.

Link to this entry Posted on 3/31/04; 6:05:43 PM