While Stanford defends its acceptance of a $1 million grant from Yahoo, Timothy Sprinkle of WorldPoliticsWatch.com says that Yahoo officials are continuing to collaborate with the communist Chinese in their crackdown on journalists. (World Politics Watch is a Washington-based daily focusing on national security.) Sprinkle points out that an August 2006 report from Human Rights Watch found that Chinese officials used Yahoo data again this past summer to arrest three more citizens on subversion charges. Sprinkle says the Sunnyvale-based Yahoo wants to continue to operate in China and sees its assistance in jailing journalists as a PR problem. Meanwhile, the State Department has created a task force that is developing a U.S. plan to stop foreign Internet censorship and restrictions on reporters.

Meanwhile, the stream of stories about the Knight Fellowship at Stanford accepting a $1 million grant from Yahoo keep coming. None of the stories quote any of Stanford’s Department of Communication faculty other than Knight Fellowship director Jim Bettinger. That’s odd considering that many of them have voiced strong opinions when news organizations have conflicts of interests. Here is a list of stories:

• Oct. 12, Associated Press, via E&P: Stanford Journalism Fellowship Keeps Yahoo Money Despite Criticism
• Oct. 11, Mercury News: Yahoo gift causes controversy
• Oct. 10, Stanford Daily: Yahoo! grant draws scrutiny
• Oct. 1, NY Times, via International Herald Tribune: Yahoo tries to mend some fences
• Oct. 1, SF Chronicle: Yahoo money sparks debate over journalism fellowship
• Sept. 29, NPR’s Morning Edition: Yahoo! Donation Prompts Fellowship Controversy
• Sept. 18, San Jose Business Journal: Yahoo funds $1M Stanford journalism fellowship
• Sept. 18, PPC: Yahoo’s new journalism fellowship is ironic