| May. 17th, 2012

Los Angeles Media Ready to Fight AOL's Patch.com

By Exception Staff | August 05, 2010

AOL is spending $50 million to develop Patch.com, its network of hyperlocal news sites across America. Patch.com is already running sites in states like New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts and it's started to expand in Southern California (read the LA Times' coverage of the Manhattan Beach site, one of the first in the area, here.) The conglomerate currently runs a Patch in 17 communities in the Los Angeles area, including San Rafael, Beverly Hills, Mill Valley, West Hollywood and Hermosa Beach.

However, as the internet giant aggressively expands its empire into communities already covered by local papers and blogs, critics are coming forward.

"I understand they picked the demographics," Kevin Cody of the Easy Reader, which serves South Bay towns now under competition from Patch.com, told the LA Times. "But why not pick a place that is underserved?"

Timothy Rutt, the editor of the Altadenablog, which covers Altadena, California, recounts how Patch.com approached him with a "join us or face us" proposition:

They wanted someone who could operate a laptop, snap pictures, listen to the police scanner, knew the local community, business, and politics .. basically, someone to do the job we were doing already.

So we weren't surprised when Poach called us last week, offering us the position. To reinforce it, someone from a local Poach site in Silicon Valley also gave us a call and a sweet, sweet siren song.

Rutt explains that he decided against selling out, despite the financial stability of working for AOL, "Because we don't answer to any corporate masters, Altadenablog has the ability to be nimble in its coverage, to switch gears if needed."

Although Patch.com editors make between $38k and $45k per year, some current editors, who are expected to cover an town almost entirely by themselves, are complaining of "sweatshop"-like working conditions.

Claims one:

The working conditions for local editors at Patch sites raise the question of whether this model is sustainable or about whether this is the reality for journalists working in this new media age.

Basically, the job is 24/7 with so far little support in getting any kind of time off — nights, weekends, vacation days guaranteed under our AOL contract...I’ve never worked so much in my life.

August 6 Update: Patch editors have responded to the digital sweatshop claim on BI. It's worth a read for the other side's point of view.