Beth Fouhy. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

Just because there is a hurricane out there and you are cooped up inside with 12 jugs of water doesn't mean everything else has stopped. For example, hiring announcements still seem to find their way into our inboxes.

This morning, Yahoo News announced that Beth Fouhy, an AP political reporter, will join Yahoo! News as senior politics and national coverage editor.

“From our first meeting, it was clear Beth would be a perfect fit at Yahoo News,” said Hillary Frey, editor in chief of Yahoo News.  “Not only does she bring a wealth of experience, she has great ideas about how to continue to build up the Yahoo News brand and get more great stories in front of our readers. I am thrilled she’ll be part of our New York staff.”

“I’m so excited to be joining Yahoo News and can’t wait to develop distinctive, original stories with a terrific group of reporters and editors.  It’s a dream job for me,” Ms. Fouhy said.

Ms. Fouhy was part of the national political team covering the 2012 presidential campaign at the AP, focusing on fund-raising and media.  Before joining the Associated Press, Ms. Fouhy worked at CNN for over a decade, where she was an executive producer of itspolitical unit from 1997-2001.

Ms. Fouhy will "play a key role in refining Yahoo News's future plans following the tremendous response to date for the site's 2012 elections coverage." Her first day will be on November 19. Hopefully by then the subways will be running again.

"They're not concerned at all. They're happy to have a party with black people drowning," Chalian said over a break in an ABC News/Yahoo News webcast. Mr. Chalian was referring to the fact that the Hurricaine Isaac was  hitting the Gulf Coast during the convention in Tampa. Mr. Chalian, who was quickly let go, apologized for "making an inappropriate and thoughtless joke."

John Harris, Politico's editor-in-chief, told Dylan Byers that the August incident was taken into account.

"David screwed up, admitted he screwed up and paid the price of losing his job for screwing up. He certainly would have been held accountable for the lapse in judgment had he been on the POLITICO staff at the time," Mr. Harris told Politico. "He’s made clear that remark did not reflect his personal views or professional standards. This is a journalist who carries with him more than a decade of accomplishment and a well-earned reputation for fairness.

At Politico, Mr. Chalian will be part of a push to expand and develop video content.

"His mission at POLITICO is simple: build on the tremendous success of our video team and POLITICO LIVE shows. The production quality and content of our videos, the graphics and marketing efforts are second to none. It will be David's mandate to take a winning product and take it to the next level as POLITICO continues to innovate across existing and new platforms," Politico C.O.O. Kim Kingsley wrote in an internal memo.

Full memo below:

POLITICO’s work in video and TV programming is a huge success story of this election cycle. Thanks to the heroic efforts of Sara Olson, Matt Sobocinski, Julio Negron, Alexander Trowbridge, Madeline Marshall, Carrie Stevenson, Olivia Petersen, Jacqueline Corba and our newest addition -- Senior Producer Christine Delargy -- our video traffic has grown by 85 percent in recent months, and our live shows are generating both buzz and acclaim.

We are thrilled to announce that we’re taking the next step: David Chalian will join us this month as Vice President of Video Programming to guide our expanding video efforts.

David is a well-known talent and a well-respected figure among many people in our newsroom. He’s a political expert with a long and distinguished career as an innovator and a producer of must-watch political programming, and he’s a journalist with a deep understanding of politics and source networks that go deep into both major parties.

His mission at POLITICO is simple: build on the tremendous success of our video team and POLITICO LIVE shows. The production quality and content of our videos, the graphics and marketing efforts are second to none. It will be David's mandate to take a winning product and take it to the next level as POLITICO continues to innovate across existing and new platforms.

David most recently served as the Washington Bureau Chief for Yahoo! News, where he directed its political coverage across the entire Yahoo! Media Network. In addition to campaign politics, he managed editorial coverage of the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court.

Prior to joining Yahoo! News, David was the political editor for PBS NewsHour, where he guided all of the political coverage across the program's broadcast and digital platforms. He also served as an on-camera political analyst, appeared in regular political webcasts on the Online NewsHour and co-authored the NewsHour’s daily political newsletter.

Prior to joining the NewsHour, David was the political director for ABC News, where he helped oversee the editorial content of all political news across ABC News's broadcasts and platforms. He created and co-anchored "Top Line," a daily political webcast on ABCNews.com and on ABC News Now, the network's 24-hour digital outlet.

David won an Emmy Award as part of the team that produced ABC News’s inaugural coverage in January 2009 and prior to joining ABC News, he produced "Inside City Hall," a widely acclaimed nightly political program for NY1 News.

Please join us in welcoming David to the POLITICO team.

Kim

Yahoo, despite its tattered reputation, is No. 1 in 10 content categories, according to the measurement service comScore, including news, finance, sports, entertainment and real estate. Yahoo reaches more than 75 percent of the total Internet audience in the United States, with 167.2 million unique users in June. On any given day, 30 million or more people stop by. Globally, about 700 million people visit the site in 30 languages every month.

Which actually will come as a surprise to plenty of people.

As far as what their news operation is (or isn't)? Bookforum and The Baffler editor Chris Lehmann weighed in along with Gawker's John Cook, both erstwhile Yahoo! News employees. Surprisingly, neither exactly had positive marks for the iteration of it they experienced. The official word? Emphasis ours:

I exchanged a dozen e-mails aimed at setting up a chat with Mickie Rosen, a senior executive in charge of media and commerce, to get Yahoo’s take on the matter. But the interview was canceled just before it was supposed to occur.

Oh, come on: Mickie Rosen—as we all well know by now—just isn't that great with the email machine. Maybe the newly-promoted Hillary Frey will help out with that one (both the question of what Yahoo! News is, as well as Mickie Rosen's email issues).

Finally, some attempts at answering the "What is Yahoo?" question on Twitter?

Sure:

• "I asked this and was accused of being a 1%er."
• "I want to say 'delicate.'"
• "Once again an empty vessel."
• "Asking CEO "What is Yahoo?" is such a gimmick. Its not like 'What is Microsoft' or 'What is Google' have easy answers."
• "And "WHY is it?" Must get the WHY."

Note that all of those answers share a common trait: They are generally unintelligible, and difficult to assess the meaning of. Like Yahoo!?

Question for a C.E.O.: What Is Yahoo? [NYT]

[Previously: Whoops: Yahoo VP Forgets to Remove Laid Off Bloggers from Non-BCC’d Bagel Brunch Invite, Sassed in Return]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Recently, we reported that Andrew Golis, who joined Yahoo from Talking Points Memo, was looking to hire a number of seasoned writers--including a media and culture blogger--for a new politics and news blog.

Mr. Calderone will be joining recent Yahoo News hires Chris Lehmann and Brett Michael Dykes.

UPDATE:

Here's the memo from Politico chiefs Jim VandeHei and John Harris to staffers about Mr. Calderone's departure:

Michael Calderone, who has built a reputation as one of the top writers covering media and helped build POLITICO’s reputation along the way, is moving on….
    
He has an interesting job at a new venture being sponsored by Yahoo. The post will allow him to continue to draw on his deep expertise about the personalities and debates within modern media that was his signature here.
    
I imagine that those of us here will continue to be in Michael’s crosshairs…not a new experience for me, either before or during his time at POLITICO. I know first-hand that Michael is a dogged and fair-minded reporter, and I hear similar comments from journalistic colleagues all the time. We all wish him luck at Yahoo.
    
The media beat is critically important for us—a terrific opportunity for an energetic and creative reporter. We would welcome all ideas—either if you are interested for yourself, or have good thoughts on people we should be recruiting.
    
Please do let me know, or check in with Beth Frerking.
    
John
Jim

Mr. Golis, a bespectacled 26-year-old Harvard grad who lives in Sunnyside, Queens, recently picked up a pair of experienced writers. The Observer has learned that Bookforum editor Chris Lehmann, formerly of New York, Congressional Quarterly and this newspaper (and Mr. Ana Marie Cox!), has joined Yahoo News as the managing editor of the news blog. The new job tops off a big couple of months for Mr. Lehmann, who in February sold a collection of writing based on his column for The Awl, Rich People Things, to Or Books.

Brett Michael Dykes, who previously wrote the Cajun Boy in the City blog, has also joined Mr. Golis’ team. Mr. Dykes, who is based in New York, will be writing for Yahoo about national affairs.

An embryonic form of the news blog, dubbed The Newsroom, currently lives on the Yahoo News site, accessed from a menu of verticals, between “photos” and “local.” However, the spiffed-up version of the site, which promises to be a much more robust and saucy affair, isn’t expected to launch until sometime later this year. What will it look like and how will it fit in with Yahoo’s broader media strategy?

Reached by phone on Tuesday, Mr. Golis declined to comment. Ditto, Mr. Lehmann. Likewise, a Yahoo spokesperson said it was too early to talk about the project.
Oh you close-to-the-vest new-media peeps!

It might surprise you that recent estimates put Yahoo News as the single-highest-trafficked news site on the Internet, with 42 million monthly unique visitors, topping the nearest rivals CNN Digital and MSNBC Digital. In the past, the site has relied heavily on content partnerships and well-masticated wire copy (a recent AP article on Yahoo News with the headline “Lesbian teen sues to force school to hold prom,” generated more than 50,000 comments). But recently, there have been some signs that Yahoo’s content strategy is shifting.

Earlier this month, in an interview with Ad Age, Yahoo chief Carol Bartz said it was important for her company to create a blend of content, including “our own editorial voice on our site.” In January, Yahoo entered into a partnership with former NBC entertainment chief and current Electus studio head Ben Silverman to create exclusive video content for Yahoo. And not long ago a Yahoo spokesperson told Mediabistro that “it’s important for people to see those sites as destinations, rather than just places they end up.”

Since the summer of 2007, when it bought Rivals.com and began significantly beefing up its original sports reporting, coverage and blogging, Yahoo has created a template of sorts for how to give its top-ranked news site more of an original feel. It will be Mr. Golis’ job to try and pull off a similar feat in the world of politics and news. Prior to joining Yahoo, Mr. Golis spent several years as the deputy publisher of Talking Points Memo, where he helped grow Joshua Marshall’s progressive political site into a thriving boutique news organization.

For the time being, the job of Yahoo news senior political blogger remains vacant. And this week, according to his Twitter feed, Mr. Golis was making the rounds in Washington, despite a head cold. In the meantime, applications have poured in from would-be Yahoo scribes—particularly for the job of media and culture reporter. “Please only apply if you have experience doing reporting in this area,” Mr. Golis responded on his Web site to the deluge of résumés, “commentary and consumption don’t count.”

CORRECTION: The initial headline on this post suggested that Mr. Lehmann was leaving Bookforum. In fact, he will be continuing on as an editor at Bookforum in addition to his new role at Yahoo.

fgillette@observer.com

MORE: Times' National Desk in 'Head-Snapping' Revamp >