Media General, the publisher of The Tampa Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Winston-Salem Journal, in addition to 22 community dailies, is the eighth newspaper company to join Yahoo’s HotJobs consortia. The addition of MG’s 25 papers means that the consortia’s roster now encompasses 201 papers in 40 states.

The company had been engaged in the Yahoo talks all during the multi-month negotiation process, but wasn’t ready to sign up in time for the deal’s pre-Thanksgiving announcement. We expect that it won’t be the last one in, either. Twelve companies were involved in the initial talks, but to date, only Freedom Newspapers has taken an alternative path (choosing to go with Monster).

While MG is the most recent company to officially sign up with the consortia, it knows Yahoo’s skillsets as well as any newspaper, according to Media General Interactive President Neal Fondren. He noted that MG has been upselling its recruitment classifieds to HotJobs in Tampa for over a year. The existing relationship with Tampa means that it will be the fastest MG property to get up and running with HotJobs. The other properties will be up in a matter of months, he said.

Fondren added that he has been surprised at the skepticism surrounding the deal –both inside and outside the newspaper industry. Analysts like Vin Crosbie have suggested that the deal with Yahoo was basically a capitulation by the newspaper industry to an invading force. Others have suggested that HotJobs’ tools are “mediocre” and bring no special advantages to the table. Still others have suggested that Yahoo is too distracted to really focus on building the recruitment sector with the newspapers (see “peanut butter” memo).

To Fondren, these perspectives aren’t especially well informed. “We know they’re wonderful to work with and they’re very good at collaboration,” he said. Fondren also emphasized that the deal goes far beyond recruitment in leveraging the two sides’ respective strengths. “It most definitely goes beyond recruitment. Really, we think recruitment is the tip of the iceberg.”

Fondren wouldn’t say this, but if all goes well, it is possible that MG will bring in other parts of its media empire to the consortia. In addition to the 25 papers, Media General owns 150 weekly newspapers and 23 television stations.