The anticipated layoffs of roughly 450 employees at Patch.com sites came to fruition last week. Local and regional Patch editors took to the Internet as their respective sites and regions closed up shop to say goodbye. Here’s a sampling of the activity happening in Patch communities:
- CleveScene.com reported Ohio Patch editors said farewell last week, with all 17 sites affected. The sites won’t be shutdown, however, and will remain open for community members to post blogs, events and opinions.
- Last Tuesday marked St. Louis regional editor Kurt Greenbaum’s last day, along with all other area editorial employees. According to STLToday.com, there were 24 sites in the region, which as of August, employed 16 local editorial employees. St. Louis’ Wentzville Patch.com editor noted in a goodbye that the sites will stay live for the time being, with new content posted from Patch headquarters. Community members will also still be able to post blogs, announcements and events.
- Jeff Rumage, editor of Milwaukee’s Shorewood Patch, noted last Tuesday that all editorial staff from the 15 Milwaukee-area sites were also being eliminated. Like the other regions, the sites will remain open and available to the community.
- Regional Tampa Bay, Fla., editor Sherri London also said goodbye last week. Her position, along with all other local editors at the area Patches, had been eliminated. In all, 23 Florida sites will no longer have editorial support, but will remain live for the community’s use.
- In her farewell, Eumclaw, Wash., Patch editor April Chan noted that all Washington State Patch.com sites, a total of 15, also shut down editorially, although will remain open to readers. Meanwhile, all nine Iowa Patch sites lost editors as well.
- Other single sites to lose staff include the Lorton Patch in Virginia, and the Watsonville Patch in California.
As of Oct. 7, Patch sites in towns that ranked low on DMA rankings were closed: Fort Stewart, Ga; North Charleston, S.C.; Northeast Columbia, S.C.; Webster Groves, Mo.; and Maryland Heights, Mo. According to a memo posted on JimRomenesko.com, there are now three categories of Patch.com sites. Fully staffed sites exist in towns that have high DMA rankings: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Hartford, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Then there are lightly staffed sites, which are located in towns with lower traffic or revenue in the top 14 DMAs. Finally, there are unstaffed towns, which would be all the goodbyes we’re seeing at the remaining 17 DMAs.
TheStreet.com reported that as a result of the slim down at Patch sites, AOL had begun to earn in midday trading Monday, gaining 3 percent to $34.97. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has stated several times that he would make Patch profitable before the year was out, and he may be well on his way. But as we’ve seen, there’s a cost: jobs and community news.
–Katrina M. Mendolera
