Yahoo said Monday it will add the role of online news generator to its familiar role as news aggregator with firsthand reports from areas of armed conflict around the world.
Starting later this month, the portal company plans to feature reports by Kevin Sites, a veteran television correspondent, to be the single source of news for "Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone."
Mr. Sites, 42, is a self-styled multimedia journalist who often works as a one-man unit, using portable, digital technology to report, write, edit, and transmit his stories from conflict areas around the world. He has covered war zones in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia for NBC, MSNBC, and CNN.
As a non-embedded correspondent for CNN, Mr. Sites broadcasted live as coalition air strikes hit Iraqi positions in Chamchamal and Kirkuk.
He was subsequently captured by Iraqi Fedayeen militia outside of Tikrit. He and his team were stripped of all their equipment and threatened with death until their Kurdish translator negotiated their release after four hours in captivity.
For months now, Yahoo has been putting together a team of television talent. The company hired David Katz, a former senior vice president of CBS network, during July to take charge of the Internet portal firm’s entertainment and sports divisions.
New Hires
Prior to that Yahoo hired Ira Kurgan, formerly of Fox Broadcasting, and Shawn Hardin, a former executive of NBC’s Internet group, both of whom report to Lloyd Braun, former chairman of ABC Entertainment Television. Mr. Braun hired Mr. Sites.
Yahoo, which provides services to the two largest U.S. telecommunications carriers, has been enhancing its unique content in concert with Verizon and SBC to attract new users to broadband while providing the kind of content that would set the carriers apart when they begin offering video on a large scale.
"Yahoo has a lot of applications that excite the younger crowd, and they are always adding to that portfolio," said Andy Belt, president of Adventis, a Boston-based consulting firm. "Those applications, along with the telephone companies’ video services, could be a fertile area of differentiation for the telcos."
Mr. Sites said he received an Edward R. Murrow Award for coverage of the war in Kosovo and was nominated for a national Emmy Award for contributions to a series on landmines. He has a master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
Team Effort
As a Yahoo employee, Mr. Sites will travel solo to conflict zones, aided by a U.S.-based "mission control" team that will include producer Robert Padavick, who previously worked for NBC News and CNN, and researcher Lisa Liu, a veteran of Radio Free Asia and the International Medical Corps.
Mr. Sites said he is comfortable using the latest technology, including high-definition digital cameras and satellite modems. He will file his stories via text, photography, video, audio, and interactive chat starting September 26 on the HotZone section of Yahoo.
