Voice of America writers in Hong Kong? The Voice of America, created to
bring the truth to captive nations, may get some of its material from a
captive nation - in this case, Hong Kong. Given the state of one-country,
one-and-a-half systems, the Washington Post asks a pertinent question: "what
will be written if the Chicoms invade Taiwan. Will there be a story saying,
'One million brave Chinese volunteers, responding to desperate pleas for
help from their cousins in Taipei, crossed the Taiwan Strait this morning'"?

Voice of America by Way of Hong Kong

By Al Kamen
Friday, April 15, 2005

American corporations, fleeing high labor costs, often head overseas. Turns
out, some federal agencies may be doing the same.

The Voice of America, working with ever-tightening budgets, is planning a
little outsourcing itself -- to Communist China -- to save some taxpayer
dollars.

Ted Iliff, central news division chief, said the plan, announced at a recent
staff meeting, is to take about eight news writer jobs -- the slots of
people who work the graveyard shift from around midnight to the morning --
and move those tasks to Hong Kong. (The people will move to other shifts.)
These folks handle the late news writing, then send their stories to be
translated by VOA language services into Swahili, Spanish and so on.

VOA says the move could save at least $300,000 in salaries and benefits each
year, and would relieve people burdened by working those hours -- though we
hear most of those affected like their hours and enhanced night pay.

The idea is to use contract employees -- expatriate English-speakers in Hong
Kong, who would be supervised by a senior editor in Washington.

This didn't sit well with the rank and file, who argued that a Serbian or
Mideast or U.S. political story, for example, would be written from Hong
Kong when the expertise is in this country.

And then, of course, there's the question of what will be written if the
Chicoms invade Taiwan. Will there be a story saying, "One million brave
Chinese volunteers, responding to desperate pleas for help from their
cousins in Taipei, crossed the Taiwan Strait this morning"?

There's also the question of making sure everyone in Hong Kong has the
requisite security clearances.

Tim Shamble, president of the American Federation of Government Employees
local, notes it doesn't seem to make sense that "English news broadcasts by
the Voice of America should be written by non-Americans in a foreign
country." Then there's the notion, he said, of American taxpayer dollars
providing jobs for noncitizens overseas.

"This is all a tempest in a teapot," VOA chief David Jackson said yesterday.
"We have operated out of Hong Kong for decades" -- though, of course, the
Brits were in charge in earlier decades -- and "Radio Free Asia has operated
out of there . . . with no problem." What's more, Hong Kong "is filled with
ex-pats and good journalists" [not to mention exceptional restaurants], and
they'll be "supervised and edited by people here." This is not the beginning
of an outsourcing policy but a "unique situation" and a very important news
story. "There are no plans to do this anywhere else," he said.

Well, as they say, trust but verify.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Apr14.html
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