Meet the people of the Web

Posted May 31st, 2007 at 6:00 am by Neeraj Khemlani, Yahoo! News & Info

Number of Comments One Comment / Filed in: Trends & News, Video

The Internet has given voice to millions of people’s political, social, and even spiritual passions. We might visit their sites every day, but what do we know about the people behind them?

Today we’re launching a new series called “People of the Web,” which will explore the stories behind the most interesting people and characters on the Internet.

The series, hosted by veteran journalist Kevin Sites, takes you behind the keyboard to introduce you to people of social significance. You’ll encounter Mike Rogers, a gay blogger who uses the Internet to out closeted politicians he considers hypocritical for working to pass anti-gay legislation, and Kirk Cameron, the former “Growing Pains” star who now runs an evangelical ministry that reaches millions of people online. We spend time with recently imprisoned video blogger Josh Wolf , examining his controversy and questioning whether an activist can also be a journalist. And we meet a 94-year-old Baptist minister and his 35-year-old Burning Man-disciple grandson who started an online hug movement with the site Hug Nation.

Given that last year the same team covered war zones with “Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone,” you might be asking yourself, how did they go from covering global conflicts to covering stories about the Internet? The answer is simple: our goal is to tell interesting stories that aren’t being told. Last year we worked to put a human face on war, and we like to think we did a good job of bringing the important stories about the people within each war zone to our audience. (In fact, the project won several awards including a Webby and the National Headliner Award, and Kevin was awarded the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage in Journalism.)

This year, we hope to put a human face on the Internet. While there’s certainly plenty of coverage about Internet businesses and technologies, no major news outlets are covering the stories about the people creating followings, controversies or awareness via the Internet. We believe it’s a unique beat and one that’s expanding exponentially — so there’s no shortage of great material.

You’ll notice we’ve integrated MyBlogLog. That’s both so you can connect with more “People of the Web” as well as place yourself in the running as a personality we might profile.

To hear more about this project from Kevin — in his own words — check out a short video we put together. Then let us know what you think of the site.

Neeraj Khemlani
VP, Programming & Development
Yahoo! News & Info