WHYY says goodbye to Newsworks website

Newsworks.org is no more.

Monday morning, the seven-year-old local news website was shut down, redirecting readers to a newly designed WHYY website.

So what happened?

According to Sandra Clark, WHYY vice president for news, Newsworks.org led to confusion among online readers, many of whom were apparently unaware of the website's connection to the public radio station.

"NewsWorks built a strong following, but too few knew that we belonged to an even more trusted organization — WHYY — also home of NPR and PBS," Clark wrote Monday morning.

Instead, the local NPR affiliate will lump its digital, radio and television offerings, as well as its member events, under the umbrella of WHYY.org. The site has a new design developed in coordination with local design agency Bluecadet.

Newsworks social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter have also been renamed to reflect the new WHYY branding.

There were no layoffs as part of the website changes, according to a spokeswoman for the station.

"WHYY is working to ensure that we continue to serve this community far into the future by offering top-quality multimedia content accessible to audiences how they want it and when they it," said Gabriel Coan, WHYY's vice president of digital strategies and services, who was hired last year to overhaul the station's online offerings.

Despite having discarded the Newsworks brand online, WHYY's nightly news radio program, Newsworks Tonight, will keep its name.