City Room

The City Room made its way into the print pages of the New York Times today, landing in a slot on B2 in the Metro Section. A note on the web site today said that City Room will have a dedicated print slot every Friday, which will include stories--today one from Jenny 8. Lee--and readers' comments that appeared on the web site.  read more »

The City Room's post authored by Sewell Chan on the death of Heath Ledger has reached 1.78 million page views, a spokeswoman said. The Times can't confirm if it's an all-time record for an nytimes.com blog post, but it's probably awfully close.  read more »

The editors of The New York Sun have started posting stories on their Web site during the day instead of waiting to put them in the next morning’s paper.

A memo sent to staff yesterday by city editor David Lombino said reporters should expect to file early when they’re working on certain kinds of stories. Mr. Lombino said in the memo that news editors will work with new online editor Mike McPhate to choose what will be posted early during their morning meeting.

Previously, wire copy was the only fresh content one could expect to see on the Sun Web site after the day’s stories were uploaded in the early morning hours. In an interview earlier today, managing editor Ira Stoll said he hopes that readers will get in the habit of visiting the site more often when they realize that new local stories, filed by the Sun’s own beat reporters, are being posted there on a regular basis.

Not all stories qualify for this treatment.

“We’re trying to do it more often on non-exclusive stories,” Mr. Stoll said, “like where there’s a press conference with the mayor or the governor at 10 or 11 in the morning and all the other reporters are there. Or if there was a crime that happened the night before and the police have put out a release about it.”

In an interview, Mr. Lombino said that if he’s dealing with “the kind of story that somebody [from another newspaper] can follow up on for the next day’s paper, we’ll probably want to sit on it until we’re confident they’re at home or in bed. It depends on what kind of scoop we’re talking about.”

Mr. Stoll said that “people may write shorter and quicker, and then for the print edition find a different angle or have more thorough reporting.”

Mr. Lombino said he had looked to The New York Times’ “City Room” blog as a reference point; the Times blog is updated frequently with up-to-the-minute metro news.

Mr. Stoll said he had never heard of City Room.

Mr. Lombino’s memo to staff is after the jump.  read more »