Journalism shake out

Will the New York Times become San Francisco's "local" newspaper? Maybe. According to a press release,

The New York Times announced today an expanded Bay Area metro report with added pages of local content on Fridays and Sundays in the San Francisco area. The Bay Area report will launch on Friday, Oct. 16. The new pages will complement the national and global coverage that long has made The Times a popular news provider in the region.

The Bay Area pages initially will be written and edited by New York Times journalists and contributors and will include enterprising coverage of local concerns, focusing on public affairs, culture and lifestyles in San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, the East Bay and the region. The pages will expand on the work of The Times's 10-person San Francisco news bureau and its already extensive coverage of the Bay Area.

With the Chronicle getting thinner and thinner, this might work. After all, half the reporting in the front section of the Chronicle has been imported from the Times and the Washington Post for years now. So why not the local news as well?

Since I essentially read local news for gossip and the ever-amusing sensationalism, the Times probably won't equal current offerings, but that might just save me some time.

We haven't seen it here yet, but ESPN online seems read to grab the more viable local sports markets. Watch any game on their network and you'll see ads for the prototype: ESPN Dallas.

Neiman Lab opines that the Times' move into the San Francisco Bay Area is an effort to combat the Wall Street Journal's pre-eminence. Just the other day, the WSJ surpassed USAToday as the "old media" outlet with the most daily eyeballs.

Some days, I just wish all this would settle down so I could find a decent dose of "conventional" news in one place and spend my time cruising the unconventional elsewhere. But not yet.

H/t @jayrosen.