The Crowd's Excuse for News

I am not sure of its development history, but I have assumed that the current implementation of the technology behind Yahoo! News is based on some kind of crowdsourcing model. This is one of the major reasons that my primary sources of news come from RSS feeds of institutions that still have at least some commitment to that dying practice of journalism. However, I still have a Today's Highlights window on my home page, left over from a time when I could not remove it. However, I think I have come to the point where I am ready to ditch it. I realize that this will remove opportunities to bring my wife's attention to cute pet videos, but these days both of us have no end of better things to do with our time. As a parting shot (pun intended), I did a capture of the window that finally tipped my balance:

I suppose the good news is that the volcano story is there at all. However, that was the first thing I read from this window this morning. If Yahoo! is so good at collecting data about what I am doing, they should know better than to recommend things I have already examined! The rest is all fluff; and my guess is that the "Cheapskate's guide to riches" is advertising in disguise. When professional journalism finally kicks the bucket, this image should probably be pasted on the coffin. That should take care of the what-did-he-die-of question for the few people who think enough of the departed to attend the funeral!