Times planning new website **

Los Angeles Times NewsPoint, tentatively due to launch next month, will give readers news collected RSS-style from a variety of print and web sources, possibly even the New York Times, James Nash reports in the L.A. Business Journal. The Times is developing NewsPoint in conjunction with Consenda LLC, which is doing a news aggregator for The Guardian. Details are sketchy, but a beta page for Newspoint says:

Coming soon, Los Angeles Times NewsPoint, the easy way to receive automatic news updates from your favourite sections of Los Angeles Times, as well as your choice of thousands of other websites.

Compact, fast and easy to use, Los Angeles Times NewsPoint brings together all the news you want to follow on your desktop. Simply click on a headline and the article displays instantly in your preferred web browser.

• Stay informed on the topics that matter to you
• Get perspective from other news sources such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and thousands of others
• Even get automatic updates on the latest job, property, and travel offers from the Los Angeles Times

Links on the page go to Consenda. The LABJ story calls it a big step for a newspaper like the Times to acknowledge that readers may value content from other sources more highly than its own. New York University professor Jay Rosen says in the story: "The notion of people getting news from one limited source just doesn’t apply any more in this media universe. There’s going to be a big period of adjustment ahead for the major news players."

* Added info: Mack Reed at LAVoice.org adds that former Times new media exec Harry Chandler is part of Consenda, and posts that the LABJ was wrong to call it a new website—just a kind of downloadable RSS reader, he says.

** LAT seeks correction: The Times wants the Business Journal to clarify that there is no new website involved. Writes Martha Goldstein, VP for communications: "The lead in today's Los Angeles Business Journal story, 'Times to Offer Readers a View of Stories by Competing Papers,' reports that, 'the Los Angeles Times is developing a new Web site that would include content from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other rival news sources.' This statement is incorrect. We are not developing a new Web site that includes rival content. The Los Angeles Times would offer a link on latimes.com to download Los Angeles Times-branded RSS software that will allow readers to receive Los Angeles Times and other public RSS feeds. Many other newspaper sites, including The New York Times, offer RSS feeds and encourage users to download RSS players to read them."