Look at the size of that byline!

MLA FORMAT, ETC.

Not long ago, on another blog, I wrote a post about the outsourcing of news. I was prompted by a parenthetical note I found at the bottom of an un-datelined Reuters story about a move in the Colombian peso. The note read: "(Reporting by Shivani Singh in Bangalore; Editing by Savio D'Souza)." Since then, I've always read these notes. Which brings me to this one, which I found tacked to the end of a TWO-page story on swine flu:

(Additional reporting by Maggie Fox, Steve Holland and Lesley Wroughton in Washington, Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Jason Lange, Alistair Bell and Helen Popper in Mexico City; Laura MacInnis and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Robin Emmot in Brownsville, Cynthia Johnson in Cairo, Phil Stewart in Rome and Yoko Nishikawa in Tokyo; writing by Andrew Quinn; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Uh, whoa. I'm impressed by Reuters' reach, but most of these places aren't even mentioned in the article! For example, Reuters does have a separate article on Egypt slaughtering herds of pigs, but neither Cairo or Egypt is mentioned in this story.

The previous article made me think these disclosures were just that; an accounting, for readers who cared, of just how the story was put together. In recent years, the New York Times and others have begun similar practices. As news grows ever more global, these accounting methods become indispensable. And in an era of rising mistrust in media, their value is also great. But this laundry list technique seems to be nothing more than self promotion. It is a minor issue, but I'm still disappointed.

UPDATE: The New York Times nearly matches Reuters for size:

Reporting was contributed by Sharon Otterman, Liz Robbins and Sewell Chan from New York; James C. McKinley Jr. from Houston; Nicholas Confessore from Albany; Monica Davey from Chicago; Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Washington; Larry Rohter from Mexico City; Marc Lacey from La Gloria, Mexico; and Ian Austen from Ottawa.

However, I think most of their contributions actually showed up in the article.