Quote of note:
Yahoo has, in effect, created a three-tier system for finding news that starts with the links to top ten stories and related photographs produced by mainstream news organizations on the main Yahoo News site.
Readers searching for further details will be taken to a second-level news site, which splits the page between news from 6,500 professional sources and links to the hundreds of thousands of blogs available from its syndication service.
Thus the expanded search stops short of blurring all lines between edited news and self-publishing.
"We do try to demarcate what is mainstream media and what is user-generated content so that there is no confusion there," Redfern said.
Those choosing to dig still deeper can click on "More Blog results..." to be taken to purely user-generated news from blogs, photos and links. This allow the user to search 10 million blogs listed on Yahoo's blo.gs blog tracking service.
Yahoo puts news, blogs side by side
By Eric Auchard | October 11, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. <YHOO.O> said on Monday it will begin featuring the work of self-published Web bloggers side by side with the work of professional journalists, leveling distinctions between the two.
Yahoo News, the world's most popular Internet media destination, is set to begin testing on Tuesday an expanded news search system that includes not only news stories and blogs but also user-contributed photos and related Web links.
The move will further stoke the debate between media traditionalists who want to maintain strict walls between news and commentary and those who argue such boundaries are elitist and undervalue the work of "citizen journalists."
Blogs, short for Web logs, are easy-to-publish Web sites where millions of individuals post commentary from political analysis to personal musings, creating a grassroots publishing medium that challenges the authority of established media.
Yahoo said its move to combine professionally edited news alongside the work of grassroots commentators promises to enrich the sources of information on breaking news events.
