More on the Pasadena-India Connection UPDATED

We've gotten a huge response to the news that Pasadena Now is outsourcing its news coverage to India, and we've tallied up the latest on the web (and in the comments).

The LAT Business section wrote up the case, noting of the two reporters that "one lives in Mumbai and will be paid $12,000 a year. The other will work in Bangalore for $7,200." More importantly, Macpherson isn't content with just two: "Macpherson plans to hire half a dozen more Indian reporters." Half a dozen? He's hiring a veritable army.

Many thanks to Larry Wilson of the PSN for making this good point:

thanks for the excellent reporting and commentary. for more (can't speak to the excellent part), you might see my column in today's star-news, and alex pham's story in today's times business section. one small point: the ap did not get this story by beating the bushes (or even getting a tip) locally. one of its new delhi correspondents saw it on the craigslist for india, not a site i find myself perusing much for pasadena news. larry wilson, editor, pasadena star-news

We were speculating ourselves as to how on earth anyone would find this story. As we noted yesterday, the contributor from the story is indeed in New Dehli. In this case, it seems he just got lucky, though one can imagine a fair number of journalists looking to change jobs might poke around on Craigslist. For Larry's take (which, oddly enough, makes no mention of our post), click here. He also was quoted in the previously mentioned LAT article as saying, "To pretend you can get the feel and the culture of a town as complicated and interesting as Pasadena by e-mailing and doing things over the Internet is nutty." You can't blame him for being unclear.

Reason Magazine's Hit & Run also picked up our comments, and their post elicited a great discussion in the comments. Check it out here.

Also, lots of other thoughtful folks have left interesting comments. Check out Ed Barrera, Jill, and all the other great comments.

Finally, to the list of "blogs with curious names that have linked us," we can now add Los Angeles Times Pressmens 20 Year Club (who also had some good things to say in our comments), Fancy Store-Bought Dirt and skippy the bush kangaroo.

UPDATE: Added LAT article info.