It’s Patch.com and it already covers more than 600 communities and neighborhoods in California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
The site, owned by AOL and based in New York, hires professional journalists and contracts with freelancers to cover local news and events, business and government, police and fire news, and more. Users can submit their own announcements, photos and reviews, and participate in discussions.
Here are Patch’s AdvantagesThese have been mentioned in several articles I’ve read the last few weeks, including this one in today’s L.A. Times.
- It hires experienced journalists, many of whom have been laid off by local newspapers and are already familiar with the communities they cover.
- Patch makes it easy to find whoever covers your community. Just go to Patch and click on the state where you live, then choose the community where Patch already has a presence. Contact information for every Patch editor is at the top of every local site. All Patch contributors can be contacted via email through the local site.
- It encourages participation. Send a news tip, put an event on the calendar or submit an announcement. If you’re a business owner who wants to be listed, just email them. Update: Submit information yourself via the “add it!” button at the bottom of directory search.”
- It fills a void, created by the demise of many local newspapers.
Here are the Disadvantages
- It pays many journalists far less than what they made before, and Some editors have suffered from burnout and left. Update: Janine Iamunno, senior communications director for Patch, said 3 out of 4 Patch employees make more money, or the same, as in their previous position.
- Critics say it can strangle many other smaller local websites. But I think competition helps, not hurts, the news consumer.
- It needs to make enough money to support all those journalists, and it’s growth might be too aggressive.
But you won’t hear me complaining.
Do Your Research
Most important: Local means local! The focus is very specific—news about the community or neighborhood served by the Patch site.
A smart Publicity Hound will want to develop story ideas that are directly related to a Patch.com community. As always, take the time to review each site before developing the pitch. Better yet, introduce yourself to the Patch editor.
If you have experience with getting news placed on Patch, or you have other comments to add, share them here.
Hi Joan – I’ve had great success getting to know and pitching the local Patch editions here in Southern California. Everyone who I have worked with has been friendly, and welcomed my pitches. I love the fact that they are Hyper-local, and it is very easy to tailor pitches for them. Thank you for bringing this up on your Blog!
Recently, I signed up as a community content producer with a local TV CBS affiliate – who needs bloggers/journalists to write about events in the community. The Hyper-local Patch.com seems like it offers the same style of reporting. I wonder if this is going to be a trend with local media?
Patch.com is great! They send reporters out to local events, you can post events on their calendar and they are very accessible. You don’t have to search high and low on the website to find the editor.
I agree with you Joan – competition is healthy! It forces both parties to put forth their best. Isn’t the spirit of entrepreneurship to build a better widget?
[…] Joan invites readers that have gotten news placed on Patch to share their experiences at her blog. […]
Hi there!
I am one of the veteran journalists hired by Patch recently and I have to say that this is the best job for those of us looking to stay in news. I am basically in charge of my own website, effectively making a bureau chief for lack of a better comparison. I find and hire freelancers, cover news and write stories on my own, track reader usage and engagement, and more.
Traditional print media (daily newspapers) were too slow to modify their business models and now are facing the unfortunate decline in readership, subscriptions, ad revenue, and slashing staff to accommodate those losses. As a result, readers/general public have fewer credentialed journalists delivering the news so “the media” loses more credibility.
Patch, on the other hand, wants to turn the delivery of news into an interactive experience where trained and experienced journalists cover local communities on the local level. Sure, we want to know how Congress is going to vote on extending unemployment benefits, but what does that actually mean for the people who live in our towns? Patch editors and writers can access the broad picture and then break it down into the pieces that matter to the people where we live. And after we write and post the story, we want readers and visitors to comment and contribute. What do they think about the information in the story? What sorts of things do they want covered, that perhaps the larger media outlets were missing? Do they have a news tip?
Thanks, Joan, for recognizing Patch!
[…] Patch writers are former journalists. And all journalists love to report news first. Keep Patch in mind when hear a newsy item about […]