The Times has launched City Room, a local blog with “with in-depth reports from the five
boroughs.” What I find interesting is it has a blogroll with links to dozens of other local blogs. The blog has video, too. “City Room is the most audacious online venture the Metro desk has so far conceived and committed to,†said Joe Sexton, metropolitan editor. Release after the grab…
THE NEW YORK TIMES LAUNCHES ‘CITY ROOM,’ A NEW BLOG AND ONLINE COMMUNITY
DEDICATED TO ALL THINGS NEW YORK
NEW YORK, June 18, 2007 – The New York Times announced today the launch of
City Room (http://nytimes.com/cityroom), a new Metro news blog and online
community dedicated to responding quickly to important news and information
throughout New York City. Sewell Chan, Times Metro reporter, is the City
Room bureau chief and will leverage the unique talent and resources of The
Times’s one hundred-plus-person Metro staff.
City Room provides online readers with in-depth reports from the five
boroughs of the city, as well as occasional reports from the surrounding,
suburbs on topics such as government and politics; crime and public safety;
schools; transportation; housing and economy; and people and neighborhoods.
It will enhance and supplement Metro articles from The Times, offer
non-news features about the history and civic culture of the city, and
encourage reader comments and discussion.
“City Room is the most audacious online venture the Metro desk has so far
conceived and committed to,†said Joe Sexton, metropolitan editor, The
Times. “The name of the site is a nod to our past and the time-tested
methods of good reporting, which Sewell employs with such formidable skill
— asking tough questions, digging up documents, burning shoe leather. But
as City Room evolves, Sewell will constantly experiment with new ways to
engage readers, and we expect that it will become increasingly informative,
expansive and entertaining.â€
“NYTimes.com is increasing its commitment to serving the online needs of
our New York metropolitan readers,†said Vivian Schiller, senior vice
president and general manager, NYTimes.com said. “Editorial offerings such
as City Room and UrbanEye will be the cornerstone of more robust offerings
to come.â€
City Room features:
Expanded selection of The Times’s photography
Frequent Web videos with a fresh take on the news
News profiles on neighborhoods and social trends
Links to primary sources
Original documents and Web resources, including other blogs
Forums for reader comments and discussions on New York City issues
In the months ahead, City Room will also host Q. and A. sessions with
newsmakers and Times journalists, where readers will ask the questions, and
there will be continual experimentation with multimedia.
Mr. Chan joined The Times in 2004 and has covered transportation and City
Hall. He was previously a staff writer at The Washington Post, and has
also worked for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Wall Street Journal. A
native of Manhattan, Mr. Chan graduated from New York City public schools
and from Hunter College High School, part of the City University of New
York. He is the son of Chinese immigrants who settled on the Lower East
Side in the 1970s, before moving to Brooklyn and then Queens. The first in
his family to complete college, he graduated from Harvard University and
received a master’s degree in politics from Oxford University, where he was
a Marshall scholar.
NYTimes.com is the most visited newspaper site in the U.S. with an audience
of 12.8 million unique users (May 2007 – Nielsen//NetRatings).