The Local to Close Down, Baristanet Coming

In an email sent to contributors this afternoon, Mary Ann Giordano, editor at The New York Times and director of The Local blogs for the Times, announced that the Times is ending its local blogging experiment in New Jersey.

But while the Times is ending the blog, it is "passing the baton" to Baristanet, a well-regarded Montclair-based blog. Baristanet will be expanding its coverage to Maplewood and environs through the work of new Maplewood "blogger-in-chief" Jolie Solomon. (In a reversal of sorts, Patch today launched new sites in Montclair and West Orange.)

Giordano stated in her email that Baristanet intends to continue working with current contributors. In a separate email, Solomon said that Baristanet will have The Local's archives on their site and will link with The New York Times.

Writes Solomon: "Starting tomorrow, Baristanet.com—a nationally recognized pioneer in online journalism—will welcome South Orange, Maplewood and Millburn to the Baristaville community." Solomon continues, "Working closely with the founders of Baristanet and their team, I'll be editing and curating the news (and gossip, reviews, rants, rabblerousing, obits, nostalgic memories, investigative tips) for our areas."

When we contacted Giordano to ask why the Times was ending its New Jersey blog while continuing and expanding its New York City-based blogs (a new blog is coming to the East Village soon), she referred us to Associate Managing Editor Jim Schachter. Schachter gave us this thoughtful and detailed response:

When we started the Locals in Brooklyn and New Jersey, we knew that their life spans as Times blogs with Times reporters at their helms would be limited. They were pilots for us—learning experiences. We also knew that, if we were successful, we would create communities around these maypoles we were erecting, so we would need to have an exit strategy for ourselves that was respectful of the online communities of users and contributors that we'd forged.

In the case of our Fort Greene/Clinton Hill Local  in Brooklyn, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism – our partners from the outset–wanted to take the lead as publisher. We soon will introduce a Local for the East Village with the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at NYU similarly positioned.

"We explored options of that sort for the Maplewood, Millburn, South Orange Local, as well. But when Baristanet stepped forward and proposed an arrangement in which it would begin publishing a site for the three towns as we ceased publishing, we paused and reflected and concluded: Well, that's an interesting idea!

Based on our experience, there's reason to think that community-based sites like Baristanet – small businesses, like the Main Street (make that Maplewood Avenue) merchants who advertise with them—are every bit as likely to be successful in the hyperlocal space as outlets like Patch that are big, national enterprises. So doing an informal handoff to Baristanet and then watching what its proprietors do in these towns we know and love seems like a great way to continue our learning while keeping faith with our users.