Tribune taps Journatic for hyperlocal content

The Tribune Comapyn last week announced that it's made an investment in Chicago-based media content provider Journatic, which will take over production of TribLocal,the Chicago Tribune's five-year-old network of community web sites and print editions. Terms were not disclosed for the deal, which will outsource all hyperlocal editorial content to reporters and editors at Journatic over the next three months. About half of TribLocal’s 40 staffers, including copy editors, designers and web producers, will see their jobs phased out during the transition, with 11 of 18 reporters being reassigned to provide beefed-up coverage for the Chicago Tribune's suburban bureaus. Founded in 2006, Journatic aggregates data and employs 40 full-time staffers and hundreds of freelancers to provide content to media companies and marketers. Journatic produces the entire weekly real estate section for the San Francisco Chronicle and also owns blockshopper.com, which publishes real estate research and news for 20 major metros, including Chicago. Launched in 2007, TribLocal uses staff reporters, freelance writers and user-generated content to produce hyperlocal Chicago-area community news. “We've made an investment in this company because we believe that it is a more effective way of providing hyperlocal news, and we think we can do more of it in this way,” said Tribune Editor Gerould Kern.