Yahoo hires signal more news production
Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 22 February 2006 at 11:56
Tags: BBC, Online
In a move that signals the expansion of its capacity to produce original journalism, the internet portal Yahoo has hired a former baseball star as a sports analyst.
Tony Gwynn, formerly a commentator with the ESPN sports news network, will provide exclusive baseball analysis for Yahoo Sports. The company recently also poached the Los Angeles Times’ deputy sports editor Dave Morgan to head its sports section.
While Yahoo News primarily aggregates content licenced from traditional news organisations, the web giant has been edging towards producting its own news. In addition to Gwynn, it has recently taken on a number of finanicial advice columnists.
Last September, the company hired war reporter Kevin Sites as its first reporter. Sites, who came to the world’s attention when he was vilified after filmed the killing of an unarmed Iraqi by a US Marine during the 2004 battle of Fallujah, is currenly half-way though a year of multimedia reporting from all of the world’s conflict zones for a Yahoo site called Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone.
The project is widely seen as a credibility-building excercise for an organisation that has little track-record as a news organisation. Sites recently said that he hopes to spend next year filing stories for Yahoo! from within the United States.
In a recent speech, Yahoo News general manager Neil Budde downplayed his operation’s production of original content and stressed that he was not challenging traditional news-gathering organisations.
Most of Yahoo’s moves into journalism have so far been concentrated on the United States and continental Europe. In a recent interview with the Independent, Yahoo’s managing director for the UK and Ireland, John Gisby, said the robust British press and the unique online dominance of the BBC have meant that competition from Yahoo has been less pronounced here.
