Over the last year and a half, AOL, the former Internet colossus, has spent tens of millions of dollars to build local news sites across the country through Patch.com. Patch has already set up shop in nearly 800 towns. By the end of this year, it expects that to be in 1,000 — each one with an editor and a team of freelance writers. Traffic on individual sites is low; former editors say that the average post attracts just 100 views and that they considered 500 page views a wild success. But the overall traffic is growing quickly. In December, Patch had just over three million unique visitors, 80 times that of a year earlier, according to comScore. Yet over the years, a number of so-called hyperlocal news sites have failed, and the idea is largely unproved financially. For example, Backfence, a hyperlocal forerunner that invited readers to contribute articles, closed after it was unable to attract enough users and advertising.
Patch’s competitors also include Examiner.com, a news company of local sites that is controlled by the investor Philip F. Anschutz, as well as neighborhood news blogs. Patch has hired hundreds of journalists, each equipped with a laptop computer, digital camera, cellphone and police scanner. The journalists, which AOL calls local editors, generally earn $38,000 to $45,000 annually, and work from home. They are expected to publish up to five items daily — short articles, slide shows or video — in addition to overseeing freelance writers.
But several plagiarism cases have tarnished Patch during its brief history. One journalist posted a photo from a rival site, and then denied it, while two freelancers published articles that were at least partly copied from other sources. A person familiar with the matter, who could not speak on the record about personnel matters, said they were all fired.
Read more at the
New York Times.
