Huffington Post Launches Local Site in Chicago

Huffington Post has gone local with the launch of HuffPost Chicago.

The localization of the site, which was announced by founder Arianna Huffington in June this year during the Future of Journalism event staged by the Guardian newspaper, is a move that shows the company’s direction towards covering all news, not only politics.

“We are aspiring to be a newspaper in that we want to [be] covering all news, not just the political blogging the way we began,” Huffington said in June.

Why Chicago?

“We’ve decided to start with Chicago because it’s always been a great news town – offering a vibrant mix of politics, sports, business, music, food, and urban life. Transferring The Huffington Post’s blend of news, opinion, and community – delivered with our familiar look and attitude – to a local level, HuffPost Chicago is part local news source, part resource guide, and part virtual soap box – featuring a collection of bloggers who know and love Chicago, and are looking to share their takes on everything from the Cubs to City Hall to the hot new local band to the best place for Greek food (and I can testify that there is a lot of that in Chicago!),” Huffington said in a blog post.

So, are we going to see some competition now for local Chicago sites like Chicagoist.com?