VOA Director David Jackson has announced that every day between midnight until 7 a.m., Washington time, the Voice’s new state of the art multimedia newsroom will be closed. The news will be contracted out to a team of eight editors and writers (reportedly Americans, British and Australians) in Hong Kong, Peoples Republic of China. Some sources project cost savings at about $300,000 annually, in a VOA budget of approximately $168 million.
The VOA Office of External Affairs commented:
Simply put, VOA is taking steps to expand its presence in East Asia, an
increasingly important part of the world for us. In the months ahead,
VOA will hire a half dozen or so new writers in Hong Kong and move
writers currently on Washington’s overnight newsroom shift to other
shifts in Washington.
We believe that the move will position VOA to offer better and
faster-reacting coverage of news from Hong Kong, and the rest of East
Asia. The move will also include adding internet staff in Hong Kong who
will enable VOA to update its web presence 24 hours a day, something
that is sorely needed.
No jobs will be eliminated. Members of the current overnight shift will
be moved to day and evening shifts in Washington. Three editors and five
writers will be hired as contractors in Hong Kong to handle the
news operation in our bureau there.
Stories produced in Hong Kong will be edited by full-time VOA staff
editors currently based there and also overseen and vetted by their
counterparts who will remain on the midnight shift in Washington. So the
news room here is not exactly going dark. Final editorial responsibility
will remain in those overnight editors in Washington.
The overnight shift in Washington has long been the least popular among
employees, and vacancies have been difficult to fill. The unpopular
hours also have been a recruitment obstacle. People are reluctant to
come here once told about the prospect of having to put in overnight
hours.
Hong Kong’s day of course coincides with Washington’s overnight hours,
and the city has a skilled local English-speaking workforce of
journalists who can be hired to write and edit the same news stories now
produced in the Washington newsroom, following the same high
journalistic standards that have long distinguished VOA broadcasts
around the world.
VOA has had foreign stringers throughout the world for many years, just as have most other major international news organizations. So there is nothing new there. Also, VOA has had a bureau in Hong Kong for many years, as have many other international news organizations.
There is already in place total communications and computer connectivity between VOA’s Washington headquarters and its Hong Kong bureau. Since we already have a bureau in Hong Kong, no new office space will have to
be acquired.
The Hong Kong move and resulting savings will allow VOA to add two
people to the Hong Kong staff to edit the English-language Web site
during U.S. overnight hours. This will be an effective and efficient way
to keep our Web site up to date seven days a week.
At current Hong Kong rates for local hires (no benefits or other perks
required), the staff would cost about $380,000 per year. Although this
shift will result in a small savings, that is not the main point of the
move. It is rather to extend and enhance our presence in Asia, assure
quality coverage during Washington’s overnight hours, and achieve true
24-hour web coverage. We think the move makes sense, and we also think
that now is a good time to make it.