For as long as I can remember, I've had Yahoo! as my homepage. And even though Firefox liberated us from the disaster of having to choose a single homepage many years ago (I now sport 4 pages that are all "home") Yahoo! is still the very first thing I see when I turn on the computer. I also don't watch TV news, so my only measure of what a reasonably non-engaged mythical "average" American might know about the news comes exclusively from checking Yahoo! on an hourly-ish basis. My father (bless his heart) regularly e-mails me stories that appear on the Yahoo! main page. In short, Yahoo! is my gauge of the stories that are sufficiently big or important to warrant space in one of the 7 lines of text right there in the middle of the screen.

Over the years the Yahoo! main page has taught me many things. I've learned that Yahoo! recipes are generally pretty bland (but always healthy), that the OMG! editors have terrible fashion sense and even worse writers, that the Yahoo! relationship advice columnists perpetuate exciting gender stereotypes, that everyone loves animal videos, that something interesting happens on American Idol every week, that you probably don't want to move to Miami or Las Vegas, and that being a dental hygienist is recession-proof.

I've learned a lot about the big stories - election minutiae, tragic disasters du jour, comings and goings of the President, and celebrity news. Yahoo! also heavily favors the offbeat and ridiculous. For example, one of today's 7 precious lines of indispensible news is "Woman hires impersonator to attend her high school reunion." What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall of the Yahoo! main page news editorial team meetings!

And yet, occasionally fleeting headlines appear only to just as swiftly and mysteriously disappear. Crucial or under-reported issues often briefly see the light of day here. So in the last few days, simply by visiting yahoo.com, I have learned the following:

•  Pharmaceutical companies release tons of pharmaceuticals into the water supply. The released chemicals are byproducts of their factories. This is neither regulated nor tracked by the FDA so the health effects are mostly unknown. (4/19/2009)
• A new survey reveals that many more Americans are postponing healthcare and many cite cost as the main reason for this choice. The amount of Americans on employer-based health insurance plans decreased 5% (to 54%) and the amount on Medicaid has increased 3% (to 14%). (4/20/2009)
• Torture in Abu Ghraib was not due to several "bad apples" - it came from the top. In December 2001 the Pentagon's lawyers asked JPRA (the organization that administers SERE) for details of its training techniques. JPRA provided the details with warnings that their methods can provide unreliable confessions, make prisoners more resistant, and would prove extremely unpopular with the public. JPRA officials also strongly objected to the use of their techniques on actual prisoners. CIA had already captured Zubaydah at that point and had been waterboarding him without legal justification (aka illegally). Soon after JPRA's report, the Justice Department wrote several memos making the SERE-style techiques that CIA had already been using legal. In late 2002, Donald Rumsfeld approved similar techniques for use in army operations - notably at Guantanamo. A month later, his approvals went under review at the Pentagon where they were met with extreme objections from military lawyers. But the approvals had somehow gotten into the hands of military leaders in Afghanistan, who went ahead and followed their recommendations. The document also made it to teams in Iraq, including the head of interrogations at Abu Ghraib. While the Rumsfeld document failed review and its recommendations rescinded, since they were not technically made illegal, they continued to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan. (4/22/2009)(4/22/2009)

So the news is there. I'm always surprised at how much information there actually is in very mainstream news sources - and the Yahoo! homepage isn't even a news source. It takes an active interest in current events to go to CNN.com but no such interest is necessary to check Yahoo! Some diligence is required - checking once a day is definitely not enough. For example, if you checked the page right this minute, you would learn about Pilot lands plane on busy Fla. street after engine fails or Mystery Mich. millionaire taking applications for a wife. But say you checked it every hour or so, just while you check your e-mail. What could you learn?

UPDATE: While we're on the topic of the fleeting nature of headlines and media framing, this morning the Times had an article headlined At Core of Detainee Fight: Did Methods Stop Attacks? and yet the article is now called News Analysis: Interrogations' Effectiveness May Prove Elusive. It's interesting that the Times decided to change the headline after over 200 comments were approved in protest of the original headline...

UPDATE UPDATE: Currently on Yahoo!: Timeline shows Rice approved CIA waterboarding in '02 (which explains why the CIA was already waterboarding Zubaydah illegally - please see above) and Researchers use mind-reading device to send Twitter message.