Jerry & Yahoo News

Interesting article here on the birth of Yahoo News…

If the mainstream media wanted a scapegoat to blame for Yahoo News’ enormous popularity, they could single out Jerry Garcia.

You see, when the beloved Grateful Dead leader died, early in the morning on Aug. 9, 1995, Yahoo’s brain trust flew into action. According to Yahoo folklore, co-founder Jerry Yang and other top executives promptly got together and forever changed the philosophy of what had been a directory site.

“Jerry said, ‘We’ve got to do something,'” Neil Budde, who has been Yahoo News’ general manager since 2004, told me with a smile. Yahoo promptly constructed a page linking to the coverage of Garcia’s death.
“That was the genesis of the full coverage of Yahoo News,” Budde said.

(thanks, Jon!)