Neighborhood news partnerships

In an effort to provide readers with the most comprehensive and up-to-date news from throughout the region, The Seattle Times has forged partnerships with a number of local news Web sites.

In August 2009, The Times and five charter sites announced a partnership as part of the Networked Journalism Project (see more info). The project was sponsored by J-Lab: The Insititute for Interactive Journalism, which, in turn, is funded by the Knight Foundation.

Here are the latest headlines from the charter partner sites:

Nighttime paid parking on Broadway? Increased fines? Just the start of fixing Capitol Hill parking

The SunBreak: KC Council: "The Wheels on the Bus Will Go 'Round and 'Round!"

'Suspicious package' shuts down Bellevue Ave

Capitol Hill holiday deals open thread

Ballard Food Bank looking for T-Day donations

City gives Avalon Ballard official approval

Holidays in Ballard looking for volunteers

Woman stabbed while walking in Crown Hill

Have You Hugged Your RVP Lately?

ONA to Nominate '10 Executive Council & Brainstorm Othello Park Improvements

Save the Date: Light Up the Night With South Seattle Solstice Festival of Lights Celebration

Save the Date: Strengthening SE Seattle Retail

County budget: Local program endangered by 1 cut's side effect?

Followup: Comcast HD additions tomorrow in West Seattle

Thanksgiving coupons on WSB: Dinner discount; coffee freebies

Today/tonight: Snow plan, food donations, Delridge Playfield ...

Health-reform should tackle hospital infections

UW opens new pain center

Evidence-Based Medicine: Hard For Some To Swallow

H1N1 cases may have peaked in King County -- but epidemic far from over, health officials say

More about the Networked Journalism Project

The owners of the charter sites are:

• Tracy Record, who runs West Seattle Blog and White Center Now
• Kate Bergman, who runs Next Door Media, which includes My Ballard, PhinneyWood, Queen Anne View, Magnolia Voice and Fremont Universe.
• Justin Carder, who runs Capitol Hill Seattle and and who helped create Neighborlogs, which is the platform for Central District News and several other neighborhood sites in Seattle
• Amber Campbell, who runs the Rainier Valley Post
• Michael McCarthy, M.D., who runs the Seattle Local Health Guide

These are considered to be the leading neighborhood news and health-related sites in Seattle, staffed by professionals who share The Times' journalistic values and who are respected for their community involvement, credibility and ability to break news.

The goals of the partnership include:

• Enhancing communication between the respective sites and The Times to share news tips and perhaps collaborate on news gathering.
• Linking to and promoting stories on partner sites when it helps fill coverage holes.
• Exploring tools that might enhance advertising opportunities across the partner sites.
• Learning about how such a partnership benefits the respective sites.

Four other news organizations are participating nationally, and together with The Times they will meet to assemble the lessons learned from the project.

Additional partner sites

Participation in the J-Lab project limited The Times to choosing only five charter partner sites. But we're not stopping there. We're working to establish and build cooperative relationships with other news sites in the area that meet our journalistic standards. In fact, we're hoping that lessons learned via the J-Lab project will help us build better tools to make it easy to collaborate with many sites throughout the region.

Among the sites whose content you'll see featured from time to time on this site are:

• Kirkland Views
• Three Sheets Northwest
• Seattle Beer News

If you have a community or topic site and want to learn more about this project, contact Bob Payne, Times director of communities.