Homicide Watch, the Washington, D.C., Web site that tracks murders, has found another crime-ridden city to cover.

The Chicago Sun-Times is partnering with Homicide Watch’s co-founders, Laura and Chris Amico, to launch a Chicago edition. The Sun Times paid the Amicos for the technology to build the Web site. The paper plans to have its crime reporter, plus several general assignment reporters, cover murders and have interns track and follow up on these cases.

The Web site (homicides.suntimes.com) is scheduled to be up and running later this month.

Jim Kirk, The Chicago Sun Times’ editor in chief, said that the Web site’s launch is especially well-timed.

“In Chicago, the murder rate is what everybody is talking about,” said Mr. Kirk. “This is one of many initiatives we want to experiment with, in trying to bring our readers more closely together. What Homicide Watch shows is that people do like to discuss and relate to issues in their backyard.”

Mr. Kirk stressed that Homicide Watch is unlikely to generate business for the paper.

“This is not a major advertising play,” said Mr. Kirk. “This is about engaging the reader.”

The Amicos, who started Homicide Watch in September 2010, know firsthand that covering crime is not a lucrative enterprise. They struggled to attract enough financing for the Washington edition, and were forced to go on hiatus for a month last summer when funding ran low. But they were able to relaunch last September when enough money was raised through Kickstarter to pay for three interns to run the site.

The Chicago initiative marks the third version of Homicide Watch. The Trentonian, a newspaper owned by the Journal Register newspaper chain, started a Homicide Watch for Trenton in September. But Mr. Amico said that the Chicago Homicide Watch has many more murders to cover.

“Where Chicago is really different is the scale,” said Mr. Amico. “Trenton has about 20 homicides a year. Chicago had more than 500.”

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/homicide-tracking-site-expanding-to-chicago/?partner=rss&emc=rss