Yahoo Starting Breaking News Effort

Yahoo has been poaching talent from legacy media outlets for much of the past year, and in its latest grab, the online portal turned content producer took a dip into New York's tabloid pool, according to
capitalnewyork.com.

NY Daily News digital editorial director Lauren Johnston has been hired as a managing editor to build out a breaking news desk for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Internet company, which is in the midst of a newsroom expansion that marks Yahoo's latest attempt, over the past five years or so, to become a significant journalistic player.

Yahoo News editor-in-chief Megan Liberman, who was hired away from The New York Times last September, said Johnston has "the perfect mix of skills to build a breaking news desk that is both first to be right on the big stories while sourcing the viral ones that others haven’t discovered yet.”

Johnston is the latest in a growing list of editorial recruits at Yahoo, ranging from Times veterans David Pogue, Matt Bai and Lisa Belkin, to TV news heavyweights Katie Couric and Michael Isikoff, to former gossip reporters Paula Froelich and Jo Piazza, among numerous others. The site has newsrooms in New York and D.C.