The Upshot: Yahoo! Finance, Your Source for Nifty Fifty News

Imagine how nutty it would be for Newsweek to run a cover photo of former President George Bush's inaugural and try to pass it off as George W.'s swearing-in. Well, as crazy as that sounds, that's the type of historical accuracy that Yahoo! (YHOO Quote) is apparently aiming for in a recent advertisement.

OK, OK. With Yahoo!'s trading suspended Wednesday in anticipation of an post-close announcement, we here at TheStreet.com suspect that the pictorial accuracy of Yahoo!'s ads isn't a major concern right now. All the same, we're not going to let this pass.

The source of our shock and displeasure is a magazine advertisement for Yahoo! Finance that appeared in Red Herring, an ad that pitches the financial Web site as the place to go for inside dope on Wall Street. Featuring an aerial photo of Manhattan's financial district, the ad proclaims, "Feel left in," adding, "With Yahoo! Finance you'll get stock quotes, research and the latest market news. We'll even show you the secret investor's handshake. Shhh."

Sounds great. Except for one little, itty-bitty problem. Once you start looking at the photo, which appears to be an unremarkable recent shot of the Wall Street area, you realize that a whole bunch of financial landmarks are missing. The building complex known as the World Financial Center, home of Merrill Lynch, isn't there. Neither are towers housing offices of Prudential Securities, the Nasdaq, Chase Manhattan Bank and other financial institutions. Nor are two other landmarks on the New York City financial scene: the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the two tallest buildings in the city. ...