The Times will stop publishing the New Jersey edition of the Local - its pair of sites launched last year as part of an experiment in online hyperlocal journalism in Brooklyn and New Jersey.
The project in Brooklyn and plans for a new site in New York's East Village will continue with partnerships with the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. But in a final post on the Local, the Times says its hyperlocal experiment in New Jersey will take "a new and exciting direction".
"More than a-year-and-a-half ago the New York Times set out on an experiment in hyperlocal and collaborative journalism. We devoted two full-time reporters to the effort, as well as an editor and a number of support and advisory staff journalists. And we picked two fascinating and vibrant communities to launch our little enterprise," says the post.
"From the beginning, we described this as a pilot, a test, an experiment, because we knew that our path in community journalism couldn’t be paved with sites staffed by full-time New York Times journalists. Nevertheless we were committed to pursuing the journalistic lessons to be found in web-based community coverage, and made this an editorial priority."
Control of the Local website will pass to independent hyperlocal site Baristanet.com, which already covers the New Jersey area. Baristanet will launch a new website to cover the Local's catchment area of Maplewood, Millburn and South Orange and will link to the Local's archives.
A spokeswoman for the New York Times confirmed to Journalism.co.uk that all commercial arrangements organsied by the New York Times on the Local New Jersey had been wrapped up before giving control of the site to Baristanet. The site's archives will be hosted on NYTimes.com.
"These are towns we already know, frequent and love. We'll honour the community established by the Local while putting our own stamp on it," says Baristanet founder Debbie Galant in a release.
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