At first I was wondering why Mozilla would send its developers out on a consulting gig instead of working on its products. But then I see that this isn't Mozilla, it's OpenNews, which seems to be some kind of internship program funded by Knight Foundation and Mozilla.
This article is misleading, almost like the NYTimes got bamboozled into thinking they were hiring Mozilla.
EDIT: This comment might be confusing now that HN changed the headline, but the NYT article still says that Mozilla is the one doing the job. If I was Mozilla I would not be happy.
Mozilla is actually two legal entities. Mozilla the Corporation and Mozilla the Foundation (but the mantra is "One Mozilla").
The Open News team is part of Mozilla the Foundation, just the way that the Open Badges and Open Science teams are.
Mozilla the Corporation is responsible for Firefox and a variety of other projects.
But as ever, Open News and all of the efforts within the Foundation are very much part of Mozilla, and there is, obviously, no deception going on.
The Knight Foundation, the New York Times, and the Washington Post are not stupid enough to be bamboozled in the manner that you appear to be implying.
I dont know if would be considered consulting for NYT or WP. It looks like they are all in a strategic partnership of some kind. The article stated in 2 years when the project is done it will then be available for download by other news agencies, this leads me to believe they are "all in it together".
Knight-Mozilla OpenNews (http://mozillaopennews.org/) includes several full-time Mozilla Foundation staff members in addition to the fellowship recipients and any Knight Foundation staff who are involved.
As another postscript, i'd just like to note that there is a difference between internships and fellowships.
OpenNews fellows are paid 60k$ a year, get health benefits and get to work with news nerds at organizations like ProPublica, the New York Times, Texas Tribune, NPR and a bunch of others.
This article is misleading, almost like the NYTimes got bamboozled into thinking they were hiring Mozilla.
EDIT: This comment might be confusing now that HN changed the headline, but the NYT article still says that Mozilla is the one doing the job. If I was Mozilla I would not be happy.