Monday, September 12, 2005
Yahoo War Reporter: An Online Challenge to the Traditional News Media
According to the New York Times, Yahoo has hired Kevin Sites, who could well be the poster child for the new generation of wired war correspondent:
This article is significant because it describes just what a digital war correspondent is capable of providing the world with a click and and an uplink, and because it outlines Yahoo's emerging strategy of competing for audiences and video advertising dollars with the traditional news media. Yahoo wants to compete as a content provider and a portal/search engine:
According to a Yahoo executive his company is now competing for TV viewers by offering dramatic content with interactivity:
It seems that this "signature programming" is just a complement to the news Yahoo carries from other news gatherers. But Braun believes that Yahoo is improving on the old world because the Yahoo news gather will offer a "transparency" that the traditional media do not :
Mr. Sites, who is 42, has long been comfortable using new technology and the Internet as part of his reporting, from shooting his own video to writing blogs from places like Kosovo and Afghanistan. The use of technology, he said, allows
him "to report in ways that haven't been done routinely in the network news business."
This article is significant because it describes just what a digital war correspondent is capable of providing the world with a click and and an uplink, and because it outlines Yahoo's emerging strategy of competing for audiences and video advertising dollars with the traditional news media. Yahoo wants to compete as a content provider and a portal/search engine:
Yahoo is building a large beachhead in Santa Monica to establish relations with Hollywood, both to buy content from others and to produce its own. One of its motivations is to tap into the rapidly growing demand for video advertising on the Internet.
According to a Yahoo executive his company is now competing for TV viewers by offering dramatic content with interactivity:
Mr. Braun claims not to be creating a new news gathering network:"If we execute this the right way, it is a great first step to show people how we can present content in a different kind of way than television," Mr. Braun said. "One that embraces the qualities of the Internet." Those qualities, he said, including giving users the ability to control what they see and how they see it, and also to interact and respond. "
Mr. Braun said the project did not mean that Yahoo was "building any kind of news organization." Rather, he said, the company is trying to develop signature programming in all areas - news, sports, health, entertainment, finance - that will complement content it already carries from other providers.
It seems that this "signature programming" is just a complement to the news Yahoo carries from other news gatherers. But Braun believes that Yahoo is improving on the old world because the Yahoo news gather will offer a "transparency" that the traditional media do not :
The combination of edited and unedited material, Mr. Braun said, is intended to help counter the growing public distrust of network news, which he says may be in part attributed to its slick packaging. "We will have a transparency I think the Internet user wants and the news audience is craving," Mr. Braun said.
Kevin Sites is a great reporter but I am not sure that the appearance of "transparency" will necessarily make Sites reporting any more accurate than any other correspondent.
See Kevin Site's site: hotzone.yahoo.com
