Yahoo Building an Internet-age News Service

Posted on August 23, 2008

The AFP reports that Yahoo considers itself a news organization and that they are building an Internet-age news service. In its current form Yahoo acts more like a news-aggregator but they are growing their network of reports and proud of their original news scoops.

Unlike websites that just aggregate news stories plucked from the Internet, Yahoo is cutting content deals with wire services and other "traditional" outlets as well as investing in a bullpen of its own reporters.

"Yahoo News is a news organization," director of editorial programming Jessica Barron told AFP in an interview this week.

"We have been doing a lot of original reporting and we are going to be doing a lot more."

The article says one of the original Yahoo News scoops was that South Korean president Lee Myung-bak belives his country could re-unify with North Korea in his lifetime. Another one was when Condoleezza Rice admitted to having a crush on actor Denzel Washington. Yahoo's Jessica Barron told the AFP that "We want to be the number one independent news source on the Internet."

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