Outsourcing the New York Times news

Amid reports of further massive layoffs of the people who write and edit its news content (109 copy editors gone so far this year), the paper seems to have begun outsourcing production of "news" articles to special interest groups. Reader Jonathan P. Kahn noticed exactly this process underway yesterday and wrote us:

It is an open secret that many mainstream news outlets have so denuded their staffs of experienced journalists that the surviving few in the newsroom simply repackage press releases from interest groups and publish them as news. But for New York Times to openly acknowledge that its news space (not op-eds) is now being subleased to special interest groups is a new stage of open decline. I look forward to seeing coverage of abortion issues written by Planned Parenthood and of federal personnel issues by AFSCME. It will be a lot more honest than what we get now.