From Iraq to Yahoo!
Kevin Sites is a veteran television correspondent who has worked for NBC and CNN. But he’s mostly famous for the blog he started to write in 2003 from Iraq, where he posted articles, photos and videos. Now, Yahoo! has hired him to cover on wars around the world in a new blog, Hotzone, which will be launched on September 26. The New York Times says that Kevin Sites will deliver a daily article with pictures and videos during his trips. Does this mean that Yahoo! is building a news organization? The company says it just wants to develop signature programming that will complement content from its current providers.
Here are some excerpts from the article of the New York Times.
Yahoo, [in its first big move into original online video programming,] has hired Kevin Sites, a veteran television correspondent, to produce a multimedia Web site that will report on wars around the world.
The Web site, called “Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone” (hotzone.yahoo.com) will focus entirely on Sites’s travels as a war correspondent and will use nearly every kind of format the Internet allows. His reports will begin Sept. 26.
What will we find on this blog?
Sites intends to visit over the course of a year every place on earth that is defined by international organizations as a war or conflict zone. The list is evolving but is likely to include about 36 countries.
As he travels to these places, Sites will write a 600-to-800-word dispatch each day and produce a slide show of five to 10 digital photographs. He will also narrate audio travelogues. There will be several forms of video — relatively unedited footage posted several times a week, and once a week, a more traditional video report, edited in the style of a network news broadcast.
Apparently, this site is only the first one of a long series to come. Without competing with its current content providers, Yahoo! wants to add specific content “that embraces the qualities of the Internet.”
