Neither "I" nor "team" in Chron's I-Team

The San Francisco Chronicle will shutter its investigative unit - aka, the "I-team" - once the last remaining member, Lance Williams, heads off later this month to his new job with the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley.

Chronicle deputy managing editor Steven Proctor told the SF Weekly that money was definitely an object in making the decision:

The Chron's beat reporters will now be relied upon to turn up the fodder that leads to investigative stories -- and write them. If need be, a beat reporter may be given a few weeks to track down such a lead. ...

"If money wasn't an object, we'd have more of a combo approach," [Proctor] says. "Obviously, we have fewer people than we did at one time. That does require changes in strategy."

Williams' former team members left the paper earlier this year in the latest round of downsizing.

(h/t fishbowlLA)