yahoo site down

Yahoo headlines: What’s fact and what’s rumor?

If you’re tired of rampant speculation about Yahoo’s future, including headlines from legitimate news sources that are fueling the blogosphere with rumor and unconfirmed theories, raise your hand.

Just as I suspected.

I know it’s been a while since I was in journalism school but I seem to recall some basic rules - more like common sense - when it comes to using anonymous sources. Among them: Always try to get your source to go on-the-record, always try to get the information confirmed by multiple sources and make sure that your source is in a position to have access to the information.

In recent weeks, we’ve heard, for example, that former AOL CEO Jon Miller is trying to raise funds to buy Yahoo and take it private. We’ve also heard that Yahoo board member Carl Icahn upped his stake in the company because a new CEO was about to be named. And we continue to hear about possible deals (and then no-deals) with Microsoft and/or AOL. (Even I continue to THINK that a search deal between Microsoft and Yahoo is destined to happen - but a secret source named Deep Throat isn’t feeding that line to me during a secret meeting in a parking garage at 3 a.m.)

Kara Swisher, who writes the Boomtown blog for the WSJ’s All Things Digital, only posted the news about Jerry Yang stepping down as CEO about 10 minutes before the company announced it - and these days, she seems to be the most connected to Yahoo insiders. And while I tend to think of Swisher as one of the more credible news sources on this story, I must admit that I get a twitch when the second sentence of her blog post - Yahoo Board Casts About for New CEO: No Committee, Six Criteria and AOL Merger-Ready! - begins with: “According to numerous sources inside and outside the company…”

ARGH!

In the video embedded below, ZDNet Editor-in-Chief Larry Dignan talks about the rumor mill, why people are floating theories and which of them have more substance than others.

Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Tuberville fired

Will Tommy Tuberville Be Fired?
Is Tommy Tuberville going to be fired after 10 years coaching the Auburn Tigers football team?
Fresh off their embarrassing loss to cross-state rival Alabama, Tuberville's team is faced with a postseason not ending in a bowl bid and the good possibility that their coach is on the way out.

Tuberville might survive the axe this season, but he could be entering lame duck status after 10 years at the helm. Tuberville fired a successful offensive coordinator in the offseason, one that had helped him win 41 games

and extend his winning streak over the Crimson Tide to six games. For his troubles, Al Borges was dismissed as the scape goat of last year's 9-4 record.

Now Tuberville will have to head out on the lots of recruiting trips, trying to convince players across this country and in his own state that Auburn is a better choice than the team that still has a good shot of playing for the national championship in early January.

by Rich Cannon

fed beige book

Beige Book Shows Broad Weakness

By MAYA JACKSON RANDALL

WASHINGTON -- A Federal Reserve report Wednesday shows that economic activity across the nation has weakened even further, adding to this week's string of dismal financial news.

Since the Fed released its last beige book in mid-October, economic activity has softened further across all 12 of the nation's Federal Reserve districts, which include major cities such as New York, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta and Chicago, the latest report shows.

"Districts generally reported decreases in retail sales, and vehicle sales were down significantly in most Districts," said the beige book, which is based on information collected before Nov. 24.

The report also noted that tourism spending "was subdued" in a number of districts and reports on the service sector "were generally negative." Additionally, the report found that manufacturing activity has declined in most districts.

The picture the report paints of the housing market was also rather bleak. Nearly all districts reported weak housing markets, adding that selling prices have taken a beating and sales activity is slow, but at least, stable.

Meanwhile, the report finds that commercial real estate markets generally declined in most districts and lending standards have tightened.

While the last beige book, released on Oct. 15, highlighted the energy and mining sectors as "positive," it appears that that bright spot has now dimmed. The new December report points out that mining and energy production and exploration have started to soften in light of lower prices.

Districts also reported weak conditions in the labor markets and said pressures on prices have eased. The Boston, Richmond, Chicago and Dallas districts all reported that demand for temporary staff decreased. Also, several businesses in the Atlanta District reported that layoffs accelerated and hours declined. Dallas officials said the labor market weakness was most pronounced in the manufacturing sector. At the same time, various areas said demand for so-called skilled labor was still strong.

The report, a sneak peek into local conditions, is based on information collected during October and November, when the economy continued to waffle under the weight of the country's worst financial crisis in decades. So it reflects how the housing market tumble and related credit crunch are continuing to weigh on local economies throughout the country.

Whereas the October beige book indicated that the downturn had broadened to all 12 districts, Wednesday's report shows that the slump has intensified.

Fed officials will review the anecdotal information at their policy meeting on interest rates next week.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has already made clear that the central bank stands ready to do all it can to prop up financial markets and the economy. In a speech earlier this week, Mr. Bernanke said further interest rate cuts are "certainly feasible" and added that the Fed could also launch new liquidity programs to try to revive markets.

migrant mother dorothea lange

Migrant Mother Photo Subject Shares Story

A woman who was 4 years old when her photo was snapped as part of a series documenting hardships of the Great Depression talked to CNN today about the photo that became known as "Migrant Mother." The photo, shown alongside this story, was taken in a migrant resettlement camp. Katherine McIntosh, now 76, told CNN that people were starving in that camp and that her mother, a migrant farm worker, was ashamed of their living conditions. But she agreed to have the photo published as long as her family's names weren't used in the hopes that documenting the migrant camp conditions might result in improvements.

Dorothea Lange, the photographer who snapped the Migrant Mother photo, was a prominent documentary photographer who took photos of migrant workers for a Depression-era government agency, the Resettlement Administration. She later photographed compelling yet disturbing conditions in Japanese relocation camps during World War II. Her relocation camp photos depicted conditions with such brutal honesty that they were sometimes censored by the U.S. government.

Interviewed about the Migrant Mother photo in 1960, Lange said the mother, Florence Owens Thompson, told her that the family had been living off frozen vegetables found in the fields and birds killed by her children.

While the Migrant Mother photo became an icon of Depression poverty, the shooting of the photo almost didn't happen. Lange had finished her month-long government photography assignment and was traveling home when she saw a crude sign at the side of the road with the words "pea picker's camp." Lange continued on past the sign, struggled with her failure to inquire about conditions at the pea pickers camp for the next 20 miles, and made a U-turn. When she arrived at the pea pickers camp, she spied Thompson sitting outside a lean-to and sought permission to photograph her and her family.

Thompson herself was in the migrant camp that day as a result of happenstance. She had been driving down highway 101 and driving through the pea picker's camp when the timing chain on her car broke, prompting her to set up camp there.
Carol Bengle Gilbert