Yahoo! News may be considered as a news organization, according to Jessica Barron, director of editorial programming. Unlike online news outlets that aggregate news content from the Web, Yahoo! is not only investing in its own journalists but is also signing agreements with wire services and "traditional" sources.

"Our aim is to reach these bigger names and use our reporting talent to break news. We are really going for the kinds of questions that will make news," said Barron."We have been doing a lot of original reporting and we are going to be doing a lot more."

The original reporting she refers to include interviews with South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, US leader George W. Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Yahoo!'s global audience of 500 million helps to formulate its news judgement, since the outlet pays attention to what stories get most traffic. According to Barron, online readers have shown that they are interested in both hard facts and the human value of stories.

Barron intends to make Yahoo! the premier independent online news source.

Source: AFP through IFRA Executive News Service