Let’s hear it for the virtual team

My friend Tim Porter responded to my thoughts about copy desks (”The debate over outsourcing vs. quality needs a reality check”) by reminding me, among other things, that he and I wrote a book together a couple ago while he was on the West Coast and I was in Chicago. We rarely met. Come to think of it, our editors did their part from St. Petersburg, Florida; Portland, Oregon; and Washington, D.C.

Tim now works on a number of photography, writing, and editing projects (be sure to catch his stunning new book ) while rarely meeting face to face with any of his partners.

His conclusion:

“Newsroom traditionalists might argue that proximity contributes to quality. They are wrong. The prodigious amount of so-so writing and editing seen in many newspapers is testament to that. Commitment to excellence, responsibility and, most importantly these days, personal growth lead to quality - and those values are highly portable.

“First the doors came off newspapers, then the walls blew out. In the next couple of years, we’ll see the floors drop away. Knowledge work - which is what journalism consists of, i.e., literary and creative skill applied to principles of public information, access and transparency - doesn’t need an address. It just needs a platform.”

Here’s the full post.

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