Thursday, May 14, 2009

Economic Times rips off American professor

(click image for a larger size)

So far as journalistic ethics goes, India is perhaps at the lowest possible level for any country at any point time in history. 

We already know there are astounding levels of suppression and embellishment (for instance major newspapers issued a directive to their desks not to use the word "recession").  

Newspapers are expected to gently massage stories, but this blurs the already thin boundary between a party mouthpiece and a national newspaper. They already received hundreds of crores in bailout money, with more to follow. Isn't it nice that Hindus are basically paying to get abused?

We also know newspapers are accepting money to publish articles and sometimes biased opinion poll results.

In any case, this ought to be the most bizarre. The screenshot shows a part of a financial story with the portion highlighted that was ripped off from American Professor Mark Perry. 

Professor Perry writes:
Can you do that? Shouldn't you at least change it a little bit? I think the "copy and paste" feature for some writers (and students) is like "journalistic or academic crack cocaine" - easy, cheap, and instant results, i.e. irresistible and completely addicting.

Update: As misterjosh comments "India is outsourcing its reporting to low cost American college professor bloggers. I think we've come full circle." [link]
At first glance the passage in question seems to be rather inconsequential. However, the implications are very grave. Even a short financial commentary requires analysis and more to the point skill. It costs money. If The Economic Times is really substituting financial reporting with a bot who randomly pieces together bits and pieces snitched from here and there, this is very serious. But then again Indian media has always left us high and dry,

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