Irony is still dead

According to a column in the Washington Post:

American corporations, fleeing high labor costs, often head overseas. Turns out, some federal agencies may be doing the same.

The Voice of America, working with ever-tightening budgets, is planning a little outsourcing itself -- to Communist China -- to save some taxpayer dollars.

Ted Iliff, central news division chief, said the plan, announced at a recent staff meeting, is to take about eight news writer jobs -- the slots of people who work the graveyard shift from around midnight to the morning -- and move those tasks to Hong Kong. (The people will move to other shifts.) These folks handle the late news writing, then send their stories to be translated by VOA language services into Swahili, Spanish and so on.

VOA says the move could save at least $300,000 in salaries and benefits each year, and would relieve people burdened by working those hours...

I have to say my favorite quote came in response the furor this provoked.

"This is all a tempest in a teapot," VOA chief David Jackson said yesterday. "We have operated out of Hong Kong for decades" -- though, of course, the Brits were in charge in earlier decades..."

I mean, it's not like the Brits and the Chinese have different approaches to controlling the media, right?

Next step, Voice of America written in Kyrgyzstan to save on vowels.