Arun Jethmalani, CEO of ValueNotes, a research company that carries out many media projects, discussed the value of outsourcing in the media at the 16th World Editors Forum. Outsourcing is by no means new to the newspaper industry: in fact, newspapers have used freelancers for some time, but some think that it should be taken much further.

Jethmalani compared outsourcing to other industries such as banking or the car industry: parts are being made in one country, assembled in another and sold to many others. "Outsourcing can be a solution." With a lot of research done, his company developed a method of benchmarking their outsourcers, particularly in India.

He acknowledged that there are concerns people have with outsourcing such as the quality of articles and loss of control. However, Jethmalani believes that it might be a necessary risk if newspapers are to succeed in charging for their content as there is currently very little differentiation between news sources. Outsourcing could allow newspapers to shift their focus to finding what is unique and different about their content, and it is this which will help them make money.

The internet allows us to reach out to writers who in turn cover more subjects, thus giving news sites a more vibrant online presence. Jethmalani used Wikipedia as an example of modern outsourcing. Despite the fact that Wikipedia can be looked down upon as poor quality content, there are 85,000 contributors and 1,000 articles every day. Wiki content is in over 260 languages and a has reader base of 65 million a month.

"Look at outsourcing strategically and not just technically," he concluded.