The Bay Citizen and the Center for Investigative Reporting have signed a formal letter of intent to merge the two award-winning Bay Area nonprofit news organizations, the directors of both companies announced Tuesday afternoon.

Under terms of a memorandum of understanding approved by both boards, management of The Bay Citizen will be handed over to the existing leadership of the Berkeley-based CIR within 30 days. Phil Bronstein, the chairman of CIR’s board of directors, will become the executive chairman of the combined companies.

Bronstein said in a statement, “I’ve been a journalist in the Bay Area my entire adult life and have deep roots and affection for the extraordinary and unique culture here. There is more innovation, activism, and civic involvement in this region than anywhere in the country. This is the basis for engaging people where we all live.”

Robert Rosenthal, CIR’s executive director, will retain that title with the combined organization. In a press release, the boards said that Rosenthal will be in charge of the combined editorial teams and will be responsible for day-to-day operations. 

“This is an opportunity to take accountability journalism to an even higher level,” Rosenthal said in a statement. “We will now be able to bring our combined strategies for engagement and accountability journalism to a region of the country that can best embrace it. Because it’s the Bay Area, stories we do here will be of interest to audiences across the country and around the world.”

Mark Katches is editorial director of CIR and its California Watch investigative reporting project. The Bay Citizen will be without editorial leadership on Thursday, when its current editor-in-chief, Steve Fainaru, steps down as previously announced.

“We are entering into a memorandum of understanding with the Center for Investigative Reporting which would propose a merger of equals,” said Christian Selchau-Hansen, a director and treasurer of The Bay Citizen’s board. “It is simply an arrangement for the two organizations to explore a merger.”

At the end of 30 days, Selchau-Hansen said, each board will have to independently decide whether to approve a final merger. If either side rejects the plan, Selchau-Hansen said in response to a question from The Bay Citizen staff, “Then there won’t be a merger.”

But, he said, both boards believe the merger would create a formidable news organization that will be greater than the sum of its parts. “It’s an incredible opportunity to further high-quality journalism for the San Francisco and Bay Area communities,” Selchau-Hansen said. “It takes two organizations that are both deeply committed to high-quality journalism and allows them to do more than either one could do individually. It’s really exciting.”

Selchau-Hansen, 36, said the editorial leadership and direction of the new organization will be decided in the next 30 days by a six-person joint transition committee, consisting of three members from each side. Brian C. Kelley, The Bay Citizen's interim CEO, said he and The Bay Citizen’s board will choose The Bay Citizen’s three representatives. Bronstein and Rosenthal will take two of the three slots from CIR, Selchau-Hansen said.

The merger would combine the business, technology and news operations of both organizations, creating what Bronstein earlier called “an unprecedented level of accountability reporting for the Bay Area.”

“We will leverage the complimentary strengths of the two organizations for greater depth, reach and efficiency,” Bronstein said in a presentation to The Bay Citizen board late last month.

Selchau-Hansen said the newly combined nonprofits would be governed by a board composed equally of members from The Bay Citizen, a two-year-old startup founded in 2009 by the San Francisco investor Warren Hellman, and from CIR, founded in 1977, the nation’s oldest nonprofit investigative news group.

Together, the two organizations have more than 70 employees. In a presentation to The Bay Citizen’s board in late January, Bronstein identified “economies of at least $1 million in operational expenses and $900,000 in duplicative personnel.”

Representatives of the two groups declined to talk about the timing or extent of the expected layoffs.

CIR was founded by a small group of investigative reporters, including Lowell Bergman, David Weir and Dan Noyes. CIR distributes its stories directly and through television, print, radio and online outlets, including NPR News, PBS “Frontline,” The Los Angeles Times, “60 Minutes,” The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, Salon.com, “ABC Nightly News,” CNN, and many others. CIR stories have received numerous journalism awards including the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton, the George Polk Award, the Emmy Award, Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, and a National Magazine Award for Reporting Excellence.

The Bay Citizen was founded in 2009 by Hellman and Lisa Frazier, who resigned this week as The Bay Citizen’s chief executive officer. She was replaced on Monday by Kelley, who said Tuesday he would remain as interim CEO until Bronstein takes over in 30 days.

The Bay Citizen operates its own website, baycitizen.org, and provides four pages (typically eight stories) each week to the Friday and Sunday Bay Area editions of The New York Times. The Bay Citizen’s contract with The Times is scheduled to renew in October unless terminated by either party with 60 days notice.