Altadena Blogger Tells AOL’s Patch to Shove It
by Matt on Jun 15, 2010 in Industry
Okay, maybe “shove it” isn’t the right word choice there, but you’ll get the picture: Tim Rutt, the editor & publisher of the California-based AltadenaBlog.com, has posted a passionate article explaining why he said “no” when AOL’s Patch.com came calling recently. Here’s a sample:
“…we’ve been telling people to buy locally and support local businesses for almost three years now, and what would we be if we shut this down to create a second rate version of ourselves at the behest of a corporation that has no real interest in this community, except to extract dollars from it?
We explained it to them like this: Altadena has a Coffee Gallery, but not a Starbucks. We have worked very hard, with greater and lesser degrees of success, to get an understanding of the town we call home and try to convey that to you every day on Altadenablog. We don’t think a cookie-cutter “Newsbucks” would be the same.”
Amen. Tim doesn’t know me from Adam, and vice versa, but it sounds like he also subscribes to my hyperlocal is best done from the ground up belief.
I just shared a link in the latest news roundup about Patch’s recent posting of 300 +/- jobs, so I’m sure Tim won’t be the only local blogger getting calls from AOL.
Your turn: Would you be tempted by a call from Patch, or some other big company creating hyperlocal sites? Would it depend on the offer? Comments are open.
(found via Lost Remote and there’s more discussion on Mediagazer)
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7 Responses to “Altadena Blogger Tells AOL’s Patch to Shove It”
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I’d be curious to know what the going rate for a hyperlocal blog is. There’s a fine line between keepin’ it real and paying for the kids to go to college.
Hey Ryan – a few weeks ago, I linked to this blog post:
http://blog.fourcher.net/2010/05/patchcom-revenue-model-makes-no-sense.html
It says that Patch is paying a Manhattan Beach (CA) blogger between $38k and $45k per year.
I’m afraid “not interested” is not the same thing as “shove it,” so as the party involved, I really can’t endorse your headline. I would never tell anyone “shove it” in a professional discussion, and I certainly didn’t tell Patch that.
But I do endorse your idea that hyperlocal definitely works when it’s ground-up. You’re working for the readers, and they have made so many suggestions — from story ideas to preferred typeface — that have added so much value to this news site. In a Patch situation, i would never be able to have such community collaboration, and that was one of my objections to it.
I don’t know about Patch, maybe he’s right to turn them down. But I have to think there is some room for mutually beneficial partnerships between mass media and local media. What form those partnerships will take, I don’t yet know. Thoughts?
Hey Vince — there are already a number of partnerships between traditional media and local online news sites. This is happening across the country. You might browse through the INDUSTRY category archives here, or maybe do a search up above for “seattle times”, which I think is the one I’ve written about the most. Hope this helps.
Thx for commenting, Tim – appreciate it. I’m curious about one thing you’re saying both here and, I think, on your blog: you wouldn’t have been able to have community collaboration with Patch. Is that true? Do they have specific rules against inviting reader ideas and feedback, or is it that the platform is too restrictive to do things differently?
The Patch is invading our village (yeah, it’s really called a “village”) right now. It will be interesting to see how much traction they get. We already have two newspapers, the Chicago Tribune has a hyperlocal site that allows for much of the same functionality. And one of our two local papers is adding a user-generated news website in the months to come. It’s an all out hyperlocal turf war right now and I can’t help but wonder if there’s enough news to go around!
If the Patch approached me, I don’t think I would be interested because I like doing my own thing and I like the freedom of posting what I want, when I want without the pressure of deadlines and expectations. Then again, my site is very similar so they probably would see me as competition although I don’t see it that way because I’m not a journalist so reporting just the facts isn’t my main goal. As a blogger, I freely share my opinions and perspectives on the news around town and I think that’s why people enjoy my site.