New York Times Plans Neighborhood Blogs

By Tom Dunlap

Charles Cooper over at CNET has keep his New York roots alive, thankfully, and today he filed an excellent blog about Facebook, the state of newspapers, and about neighborhood blogs in Brooklyn.

I used to work with "Coop" at ZDNET and CNET in San Francisco. The rabid New York Knicks fan has always written an insightful column or blog and kept his newsrooms lively, despite his questionable taste in sports teams.

At the bottom of his Coop's Corner blog today, he slips in a note about the New York Times' plan for local blogs. Cooper links to an article on the Brownstoner blog that all journalism watchers and serious bloggers should pay attention to:

Starting mid-day on Monday, The New York Times will be rolling out a neighborhood blog initiative. Our home soil of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill will be one of the two pilot sites (the other site will cover Millburn, Maplewood and South Orange in New Jersey). According to an email that was forwarded to us, the subject matter will include "cultural events, bar and restaurant openings, real estate, arts, fashion, health, social concerns and anything else that goes on in the 'SoHo of Brooklyn.'"

Each site will be helmed by a writer/editor from the paper, a Times official told us, but will draw upon contributors from the neighborhood as well as some free labor from the CUNY journalism program.

It sounds like a potentially interesting plan to me, if the Times can keep the quality of the blogs up. Perhaps vibrant neighborhood blogs are the real future of local journalism.  But a comment on the Brownstoner blog should also be heeded: "Another attempt by the Times to stay relevant, in the face of their implosion."