Problems at Patch.com

Dooley diddled dually.

 

Just saw on my local Patch

A list of top 25 delinquent in their property tax payments.

Fairly well known group of folks that projected prosperous look. Turns out they are "big hat no cattle"

Local print paper would have never done this. Patch got the list through freedom of information act.

A lot of angst at the ladies book club meetings today.

 

Ouch. That's not going to earn them a lot of friends, but it will probably result in a lot of back taxes being paid.

That article had to take a while to compile. It doesn't look like they made any effort to contact the people they listed for comment. Isn't that sort of Journalism 101?

Maybe the taxes are in dispute. Maybe they've been paid into an escrow account while they're disputing the bill.

 

Depends on where you are. Pretty much all the tax records out here are computerized now, so it's relatively easy to get a sortable Excel spreadsheet with how much people owe, and how long the bill has been outstanding.

 

Here's an article from today's LA Times about Patch.com's new plan to launch new hyper-local sites in Newark "in partnership with Newark Mayor Cory Booker." Because there are no potential conflicts of interest there...

 

The owner of thealternativepress.com, who runs hyperlocal sites west of Newark, said he's turning a profit. He doesn't employ full-time writers, though.

http://thealternativepress.com/articles/david-slays-goliath-at-mitef-enterprise-forum-thealterna%E2%80%8Btivepress%E2%80%8Bcom-announces-profitabil%E2%80%8Bity-and-successful-business-model-as-aols-patchcom-finds-itself-on-the-defensive--2

 

Bumping this back up...

Has anyone heard of someone being let go from Patch and that writer's work later being repackaged with the byline of another writer?

A friend of mine in New York says that happened to him, and he's steamed. Wondered if there were any more incidents I could present to him as evidence.

 

So, they actually used your friend's work, but put somebody else's byline on it?

Was your friend a freelancer or a local editor for them? I ask because you said he was let go and freelancers aren't really "let go." They just stop getting work.

Never heard of somebody doing that, but it's damn unethical.

 

Thank you for that!

 

He was a freelancer. I have a feeling he's screwed in trying to prove something, but you're damn right. That's way over the line.

 

Haven't heard of something like that. If you want to PM me the region he worked in, I could give you the regional editor's name for him to shoot an e-mail to.

I will say that if he was let go as a freelancer, you do have to be careful that he's not BSing you. The last three people I talked to who "left" local reporting jobs said they quit, but when I talk to their co-workers, the co-workers say they got fired. However, if he definitely feels like he's been plagiarized, he should contact someone higher up the chain at Patch.

 

This is the part of the show where everyone employed by Patch should begin feeling that indescribable yet familiar and unavoidable sense of impending doom.

http://norwood.patch.com/articles/local-voices-a-note-from-arianna-huffington-president-and-editor-in-chief-of-the-huffington-post-media-group-165

It's very cute how the ghostwriter for Arianna Huffington fashioned her as a woman of the people very interested in the minutiae of small town life.