Allbritton Communications Co., the parent company of the Politico website and Washington's ABC affiliate, is naming its new local news website TBD.
In a statement on the site, editors wrote Thursday that they considered other names but settled on TBD after editor Erik Wemple began signing his name, followed by the acronym for "to be determined."
The editors explained that their news operation will never deliver a finished product, unlike newspapers and TV broadcasts. Instead, it will report key answers about stories as they develop in real time, "with the rest TBD."
Jim Brady, president of digital strategy for Arlington, Va.-based Allbritton, announced the name on Facebook and Twitter.
The launch date for TBD.com has not yet been determined, Brady said in an e-mail. It will have a staff of about 50 journalists and will incorporate the websites of Allbritton's Washington TV outlets, WJLA.com and news8.net. New plans for the 24-hour NewsChannel 8 would be announced in the coming weeks, he said.
Brady is the former executive editor of washingtonpost.com, the online version of The Washington Post. Wemple previously led the Washington City Paper.
