The continued dance of alliances in the newspaper industry: McClatchy has abandoned a nascent national online ad partnership with Tribune and Gannett to join a rival group of publishers that is working with Yahoo, reports WSJ, citing sources.

The Yahoo consortium meanwhile now has at least 12 newspaper companies involved, and a new, broader deal could be announced next week, the story says. The network would establish a common online platform among all these newspaper sites that would allow an advertiser to easily purchase advertising space across multiple sites. The consortium has been led by Hearst Corp. and MediaNews, and includes 12 publishers that represent more than 250 newspapers across the country.

The consortium started as a Yahoo-Hotjobs focused one, but there are plans to expand beyond that in the network. It will involves sites using Yahoo search, cross-ad sales on Yahoo and newspapers’ sites (with revenue share), and content from the newspapers in the partnership would be featured on Yahoo’s individual channels, such as news and technology.

McClatchy will remain partners with Gannett and Tribune in CareerBuilder. It seems that McClatchy isn’t participating in the original Hotjobs portion of the deal with Yahoo, and may be negotiating under slightly different terms.

LAT: Yahoo has agreed to place prominent links—including on section fronts for Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance—that will drive readers back to local newspaper Web sites.

Related:
-- Now There Are Eight: Media General Joins Yahoo Newspaper Consortium
-- Gannett, Tribune and McClatchy To Jointly Sell Online Ads Across Properties: WSJ
-- It’s Official: Yahoo HotJobs-Seven Newspaper Publishers Join Forces; Deal Includes Local News
-- Yahoo-Newspapers: Conference Call: Why Yahoo? Timelines, Plans, Etc.
-- Yahoo-Newspapers: More Details: Search, Local Listings Included; Co-Branded Online