Jonathan Weber, the former Los Angeles Times tech editor who co-founded (and recruited me to join) The Industry Standard magazine a decade ago,will be the editor-in-chief of the new Bay Area News Project. He'll reportedly be hiring 12-15 journalists for the nonprofit operation, which is being closely watched as a possible model for Los Angeles and elsewhere. Bay Area businessman Warren Hellman is funding the startup, which recently lost an announced partner in PBS station KQED and has yet to finalize a relationship with the New York Times, according to Staci Kramer at paidContent. She has other analysis and says UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism remains a partner. Meanwhile, it means Weber will be leaving NewWest.net, the news and commentary site covering the Rocky Mountain region that he started in Missoula, Montana.

* From the release: Lisa Frazier, a partner in McKinsey & Company’s San Francisco office, is CEO of the new venture. And it has an agreement to provide news two days a week to the Bay Area pages of the New York Times. Bay Area News Project

Via Romenesko