Yahoo! appears to be launching a local blog here shortly. This job posting appeared a few days ago:

Local Editor – Washington DC

Yahoo! is looking for an expert online editor to raise the level of our content served to the citizens of Washington DC. The ideal candidate will be a seasoned editor with a passion for news, new media, and their local market. He or she will package and synthesize content from a number of sources and publishers into a relevant, addictive offering forWashington DCresidents. You should be flexible, quick-thinking, energetic, efficient, and able to work independently under pressure while maintaining attention to detail. Real-world journalistic experience managing digital news on deadline is a must.

Candidates should have a college degree, "preferably in journalism or media," which would disqualify most of City Paper's staff, and will be responsible for "choosing which stories to highlight, and which to ignore," "crafting clever headlines, writing tease copy, choosing and cropping appropriate images," "sourcing and managing content from partners," and "reporting and writing engaging posts from primary or secondary sources on deadline," among other job duties.

Yahoo! launched beta local news sites late last year in 30 neighborhoods. No one at the Yahoo! corporate press shop responded immediately to an inquiry about the D.C. site, but it seems similar to what AOL is trying to do with its new Patch network of sites—i.e., create original content to drive traffic against, the better to compete with Google. Several editors and writers for The Upshot, Yahoo!'s national news blog, are based in D.C., but deputy editor Chris Lehmann tells City Desk this local job isn't part of that project.

In any case, welcome to Yahoo!—and we look forward to the forthcoming launch of the D.C. edition of Infoseek, as well.