Seattle Times partners with neighborhood news sites

The Seattle Times and several neighborhood news Web sites in Seattle are joining forces as part of an interactive journalism project.

Kathy Best, managing editor with responsibility for seattletimes.com, said the sites are among the leading neighborhood newsgathering operations in Seattle, staffed by professionals who share The Times' journalistic values.

Suki Dardarian, managing editor of The Times' print editions, said, "We're thrilled to be part of building something that can help this community and at the same time contribute to the profession of journalism."

Partnering with The Times are:

• Tracy Record, who runs the West Seattle Blog (westseattleblog.com) and whitecenternow.com.

• Kate Bergman, who runs Next Door Media (nextdoormedia.com), which includes My Ballard, PhinneyWood, Queen Anne View, Magnolia Voice and Fremont Universe.

• Justin Carder, who runs Capitol Hill Seattle (capitolhillseattle.com) and who helped create Neighborlogs (neighborlogs.com), the platform for several neighborhood sites in Seattle.

• Amber Campbell, who runs the Rainier Valley Post (rainiervalleypost.com).

The partnership is part of a project made possible by a grant from J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, which is in turn financed by the Knight Foundation.

"These sites have grown and built a community of people around them," said Bob Payne, director of communities for seattletimes.com. "We realized there are ways we can help each other meet our readers' needs, building off the strengths of The Times and the Web sites to provide more complete neighborhood news coverage."

Tracy Record, of the West Seattle Blog said, "We're thrilled to be partnering with the region's largest news organization in a true journalistic collaboration."

The goals of the partnership include:

• Establishing relationships between the neighborhood sites and The Times to share news tips and work together on newsgathering.

• Linking to and promoting stories on partner sites to provide more complete news coverage.

• Learning about how partnerships between daily newspapers and neighborhood Web sites can benefit both operations.

Four other news organizations are participating in the pilot project nationally, and together with The Times they will meet to discuss what they've learned from the project. They are The Miami Herald, The Charlotte Observer, the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times and TucsonCitizen.com.