Starting Friday, The New York Times will begin printing a biweekly supplement containing local coverage to its newspapers sold in San Francisco, Agence France-Presse reported Thursday. The surprising move comes even as U.S. newspaper readership hits an all-time low, per last year's annual state of the news media report by the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism.

"It's a highly educated, internationally minded audience, and our research out there shows there's a market need for a quality news product," said Paul Bascobert, Chief Marketing Officer of a unit of News Corporation that owns the Wall Street Journal, which announced similar plans earlier this year.

Several local celebrity writers will contribute to the Bay Area edition, according to The Times. Daniel Weintraub, a longtime columnist on public affairs for the Sacramento Bee, will write a column on politics for the paper's new edition, and Scott James, a founder of the the SoMa Literary Review e-zine based in San Francisco who also has published novels under the pseudonym Kemble Scott, will pen a local column. The San Francisco market is not The Times' only target for expansion.

"Our intent is to roll out these expanded reports in several key markets around the country, with Chicago following San Francisco," said Diane C. McNulty, a company spokeswoman, in a September Times article. After establishing a local presence with Times staffers, the plan is to outsource the operation.