India, Most Popular Publishing Sourcing Destination

According to a study done by Valuenotes Database, India takes the spot as the leading publishing source location.

This is no surprise as the subcontinent has a large population and numerous fresh graduates eager fill the digital content void. Of 237 of those surveyed, 66% said they selected India as the favored offshore destination.

Meanwhile, the U.S. came out in second spot. And this was followed by the Philippines, Britain and China. China continues to be in the forefront of offshoring as its huge population is ready to tap the outsourcing market. Additionally, China offers great cost savings.

Rakhi Vig, who is in charge of product sales at Valuenotes Database was quoted as saying, "An increasing cost of production and print, coupled with the global economic slowdown, has led to the industry struggling to address the increasing demand of digital content as opposed to print acting as the driving forces behind publishing outsourcing," reports sourcingfocus.com.

Several high profile publishers and news agencies have shipped their work to India and some of them have offices in Bangalore, the hotspot for offshoring. Reuters is one of the news agencies that is operating out of India to leverage the talent pool in the country. Publishers have been cutting jobs in the U.S. and hiring lower paid workers in India to obtain efficiency: "Whilst we have seen publishers trying a variety of approaches - going digital, reducing print publishing, and cutting costs, believes the industry is yet to find that one formula that addresses all its problems," said Vig.

Despite these measures, there is much criticism and controversy behind sending writing jobs to India. Many skeptics say that cultural differences impede good reporting and gets in the way of clarity of bringing news to the readership. There is an obvious question of quality that is being raised by readers in the U.S. who would prefer high quality content to be written in the U.S.

With publishers trying to raise top dollars in advertising, digital content is still in the mainstream, while traditional newspapers struggle for survival.