Bay Area News Project Strikes Content Deal With The New York Times

The Bay Area News Project, a non-profit media organization providing hyper local news to the San Francisco area, has announced a deal to provide news to the New York Times. The content will be used for The New York Times’ local San Francisco editions on Friday and Saturday. The deal with the New York Times has been rumored to be in negotiations but was officially announced today.

The project, which was announced last year, has received $5 million in funding from financier Warren Hellman. The site, which has a staff of nearly 30 journalists, is also supported by KQED-FM (Though it appears that deal has ended) and University of California, Berkeley’s graduate school of journalism. The Project as also brought on former McKinsey partner Lisa Frazier as CEO and Jonathan Weber, the co-founder and editor in chief of The Industry Standard, as the site’s editor in chief.

The New York Times has a similar arrangement in Chicago with the nonprofit Chicago News Cooperative, a similar organization in theory to the Bay Area News Project. The Times recently made waves after announcing a new metered billing system yesterday. The exact details of the plan are unclear and its questionable whether the controversial move will actually bring revenue into the publication.