Bold Decisions

Computerworld - Last week, Computerworld reporter Marc L. Songini brought to my attention an excellent two-part article by Michael Massing on the sorry state of news reporting in the U.S. Massing's piece, which appeared in The New York Review of Books (www.nybooks.com), faults print and broadcast news organizations for a lot of things, but especially for their timidity.

"Today's political pressures too often breed in journalists a tendency toward self-censorship," Massing writes, "toward shying away from the pursuit of truths that might prove unpopular, whether with official authorities or the public." He's particularly critical of the U.S. media's poor record on international coverage. "After September 11, there was much talk about how the networks had to recover their traditional mission and educate Americans about the rest of the world," Massing notes, "yet one need only watch the evening news for a night or two to see how absurd were such expectations."

Indeed, covering unpopular topics is risky for any media outlet, and few topics in IT are more unpopular than offshore outsourcing. So I have little doubt that our feature "Working Through the Pain" in this week's issue will ignite another anti-offshore firestorm. After all, the story by Patrick Thibodeau and Thomas Hoffman is all about "learning how to get better results offshore." That means a lot of ire will be directed at our newsroom for "selling out" the IT profession we're here to serve.

Many will argue that we should stop greasing the skids -- that we should restrict coverage of corporate best practices or lessons learned by companies engaged in offshore outsourcing. Otherwise, they reason, we're nothing more than accomplices in the effort to export U.S. jobs.

The truth of the matter, unpopular as it may be, is that offshore outsourcing is an economic fact of life. You can disagree with it, you can resent it, you can fester over it. But you can't fight it any more than you can fight getting older. Corporate America must have the offshore outsourcing option in order to be competitive, and it has to be competitive if it's going to sign the paychecks of U.S. workers. Further, IT decision-makers need to learn from the experiences of their peers so they can make their own businesses successful. Facilitating that sharing of experiences is why we in this newsroom do what we do. So when we present an offshore outsourcing "how-to," we do so with no apology.

We also do so with the conviction that it is incumbent upon those same IT decision-makers to find answers to the difficult questions that arise when loyal IT workers stand to be displaced. Finding the answers requires a willingness to invest in the requisite training programs that will afford those workers the opportunity to gain the IT skills that are in highest demand.