Originally published October 9 2005
Yahoo features original news reporting, watchdogs question journalistic integrity
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Yahoo's new "The Hot Zone" features original news reporting for the first time in the company's history. However, many critics are watching the company closely after it censored its Chinese-language search engine after the Chinese government put pressure on it.
Web portals have traditionally played the role of news aggregators, publishing the work of others but doing little or no original reporting on their own.
Now Yahoo is crossing over with a new project to be created by news veteran Kevin Sites, who will visit dozens of war zones around the globe and file video and other reports online.
Sites gained notoriety last year when NBC aired controversial footage he filmed in Iraq showing a Marine killing an apparently wounded and unarmed Iraqi prisoner in a mosque.
Yahoo has yet to publish a single report from Sites, but already some media watchdogs are wondering about Yahoo's journalistic integrity, citing recent revelations that it helped Chinese authorities jail a journalist last year.
This revelation, and the fact that Yahoo previously censored its Chinese-language search engine to appease Chinese authorities, raises questions about the portal's ability to deliver transparent and objective news if it fails to protect the first amendment ideals journalists uphold, these people say.
Last week Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based organization that monitors human rights and press freedom, revealed that Yahoo's Hong Kong division helped Chinese authorities track journalist Shi Tao, who sent an e-mail through his Yahoo account allegedly containing state secrets.
The e-mail contained a warning the Chinese government gave officials and the media that pro-democracy dissidents might return to China to agitate trouble on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising.
Yahoo signed China's voluntary pledge of "self-discipline" that, among other things, asks internet companies to refrain from producing or posting "pernicious information" that could jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability.
While critics like Wright acknowledge that Yahoo, as an ISP, would also have to cooperate with authorities in the United States under a court order, the issue gets cloudy as the portal ventures into journalism.
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