Hyper Local News

Today in my news editing class we skyped with Amanda Gillooly, editor of the Canon-Macmillan Patch.com site. I had heard of Patch.com briefly in passing or in other classes, but it had always slipped my mind to look it up or look into what it was all about.

I was surprised to find out two things: one, that it was a hyper local site that has locations all over the country, is run by one editor and a bunch of freelancers, and reports on news in its specific "patch," and two, that is was owned by AOL.

The first question that was asked of her was whether AOL had any control over what was published by their particular Patch. Amanda said that she had never once had a problem with AOL not liking the material she was writing, nor did she think that she would be covering material that AOL would care so much to advise for or against.

It was interesting to me that something that appears so independent would actually be owned by AOL, but then again we all thought Huffington Post was entirely independent too...