Voice of America Hong Kong

Every so often we end up with theme days on the blog. Today’s theme appears to be news organizations making giant moves in an attempt to save money.

First the Atlantic is pulling up stakes in Beantown, and now the federal news agency Voice of America China network will be outsourcing its overnight shift in the U.S. to its facility in Hong Kong in an attempt to save money,

DCRTV had this item last week, but it was one of many items we just never got around to blogging about, and today Al Kamen’s In the Loop column takes a break from the latest personnel changes to report on something more substantial.

The VOA news division chief, Ted Iliff, recently announced that its eight overnight news writers would be shifted to other jobs and their responsibilites sent to Chinese-controlled Hong Kong where contract employees would pick up the slack.

AFGE union president Tim Shamble questioned whether “English news broadcasts by the Voice of America should be written by non-Americans in a foreign country.” Seems like a fair point to us — but then again pretty much everything else is manufactured overseas, so why not news?

UPDATE: Government Executive has more.

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