The Times To Launch Local Blogging Initiative

dear brownstoners –

thank you all for all the love. andy newman here, veteran ny times brooklyn reporter and, now, fledgling fortgreene/clintonhill blogger. this despite the fact that, as our pals at clintonhillblog reported and as i confirmed there, i reside, perhaps unforgivably, in park slope, the soho of montclair.

as i said on chb, i’m thrilled to be here, happy to not be writing about park slope, and hoping you’ll come check out The Local (that’s what it’s called) starting monday at nytimes.com/fortgreene and nytimes.com/clintonhill, where we will be blogging like crazy, linking religiously to our betters at brownstoner and elsewhere, looking for ways to serve you and get your voices heard and showering the neighborhood with the journalistic attention such an amazing place deserves.

to answer a couple of the questions posed above:

dibs, the small footprint is because this kind of blog, where we’re going to attempt to tease out every thread in the complex fabric of a neighborhood’s life, only makes sense to do at a scale this small, and barely that – there are more than 50,000 people in fg and ch, which is kind of a lot. if this blog and its new jersey counterpart take off, the times will replicate them elsewhere.

brenda, we also (of course) have interns from columbia. and queens college. as well as cuny. it takes a village of unpaid labor to get something like this going.

yours in infinite engagement,

- andy

Posted by: andynewman at February 27, 2009 12:21 PM

thanks. no gauntlet though. i come in peace. the more the merrier. no HOTD unless our realestate suits make me do it, promise.

Posted by: andynewman at February 27, 2009 12:47 PM

Mopar: Perhaps you went on a date with the like-named Andrew Adam Newman, a Times freelancer who, unlike me, is unmarried? See if he looks familiar:

http://www.andrewadamnewman.com/bio.html

Posted by: andynewman at February 27, 2009 6:49 PM

Mopar, my wife is relieved to learn that I didn't go on any dates in 2006/7. Thank you. Re donations: I expect that sometime in the nearish future the Times will begin either charging for online content or begging for donations a la NPR, since, what the heck, we're practically a nonprofit at this point. (Note: this is not a scoop. It's been out there.) Start saving up your pennies now. We'll need them. - Andy

Posted by: andynewman at February 28, 2009 8:13 AM

Yes but we charged too much. Wasn't it something like $14.95 a month for TimesSelect? I'm guessing it will be less this time. And maybe you won't be able to get 75% of the content for free anymore like you could then, which took away most of the incentive to subscribe. Also, millions of people have become hopelessly addicted to the site since then. I will stop now before the suits shut me up.

Posted by: andynewman at February 28, 2009 11:24 PM