A few more thoughts on Patch.com

My Thursday posting of an e-mail from a Patch.com local editor who considers herself overworked and underappreciated brought an unusually strong reaction from Media Nation readers — many of them, no doubt, people who work for Patch or who are thinking about it. I received nearly 4,400 page views on Thursday, well over double the usual amount of traffic.

I received several e-mails from current and former Patch folks, also insisting on anonymity, and wary about whether they wanted their words posted at all. I am not normally in the habit of publishing anonymous e-mails, and I’d just as soon Media Nation not turn into a forum for anonymous pro- and anti-Patch missives. But I can say that a few folks agreed with the anonymous e-mail and a few disputed it. One even asked that I pressure my source into giving up her identity so that other local editors will not be suspected. (Uh, no.)

What’s beyond dispute is that community journalism is hard work, and has never been particularly lucrative. In Greater Boston, what’s shaping up is a three-way battle involving Patch, GateHouse Media’s Wicked Local sites and the Boston Globe’s Your Town sites. Here’s what I’m hearing from folks who’ve been in touch with me:

• Though no one is getting rich working for Patch, it offers better pay and benefits than its competitors. But that comes with an unusually heavy load of responsibilities, as outlined by my anonymous e-mailer. Local editors must manage every aspect of the site.
• Many GateHouse journalists earn less than Patch editors. But though they also put in dauntingly long hours, editors and reporters don’t have as many non-journalistic responsibilities.
• Correspondents for the Globe’s Your Town sites are freelancers, and receive no benefits at all.

I should note that nearly all Wicked Local content is repurposed from GateHouse’s newspapers, most of them weeklies. The Your Town sites combine online-only stories, an occasional Globe story and aggregation from other news sources (but not from Wicked Local). Patch is online-only.

I should also note that the Your Town/Wicked Local/Patch combination is far from the only game in community journalism. Medium-size dailies such as the Eagle-Tribune papers north of Boston, GateHouse’s own dailies west and south of Boston, and Rupert Murdoch’s (yes, believe it or not) Standard-Times of New Bedford and Cape Cod Times are among our most important sources of local news. Journalists at those papers tend to be more experienced and better paid, too.

There are two pieces of good news in all of this: there’s a lot of competition for local news in Greater Boston, and competition is good for readers; and, a year after the news business seemed to be collapsing, news outlets are hiring young reporters at a healthy clip in order to staff new hyperlocal sites.

Hard times working the Patch

Boston Globe reporter Johnny Diaz today writes about Patch.com, the AOL-owned network of hyperlocal news sites that is (excuse me) sprouting up around the country.

As I noted earlier, Diaz writes that Patch is up against considerable competition in Greater Boston, principally from GateHouse Media’s Wicked Local websites and the Boston Globe’s Your Town sites — both of which, unlike Patch, are tied to established newspapers.

There are already 13 Patch sites in Massachusetts, with more to come.

After I posted my earlier Patch item, I heard from a Patch local editor (LE, in Patch-speak) who described working conditions that sound pretty challenging. Granted, community journalists in general work very hard for not much money. But the LE who wrote to me suggested that Patch takes it to another level.

The LE who contacted me asked that her name not be used, but gave me permission to publish her e-mail. I have verified that she is who she says she is. I don’t consider this to be the last word, and I would welcome a response from Patch. The e-mail:

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. (Some regional editors do try to help; others don’t.) This time-off issue has become a major concern among local editors. You might hear about the 70-hour work weeks. Yes, 70 hours and more. It’s a start-up and all that, and I knew it would be hard work going in. But what is becoming distressing is this sense that I can’t get a break. I’ve worked in journalism for more than 20 years as a newspaper reporter, online editor, magazine editor, and I’ve never worked so much in my life.

Patch has a policy that it the local editor’s responsibility to find our nights/weekend/vacation replacements. And we must pay that person out of our freelance budgets. I’m just three months into this job, and I’ve heard from LEs around the country that this task of finding your replacement can be daunting, because it is hard to find qualified journalists who have that sort of time to do a vacation fill-in — who who will do it for what Patch pays its freelancers. I’ve been hearing that LEs who have been around longer, up to a year, are starting to question whether the job is worth it.

And, it’s not just being a reporter, but it’s also being a city editor/assignment editor/managing editor/copy editor, and it’s handling freelance payments (and freelance payment troubleshooting), doing videos, monitoring calender and event listings, doing some of our own marketing, and even HR. It seems the business model of this organization is to add tasks, traditionally handled by others in other organizations, to the plate of the local editors. More recently, I’ve been wondering if it would be possible, time-wise, to do the kind of enterprise journalism I would like.

Maybe I should be grateful I have a job and stop griping.

Follow-up: “A few more thoughts on Patch.com.”

Patching in to AOL’s Patch (II)

Old friend Mark Leccese, blogging at Boston.com, offers further thoughts on the competition among Patch, GateHouse Media’s Wicked Local sites and Boston.com’s Your Town initiative.

Let me repeat: The most interesting local online journalism is taking place at the grassroots. And no one in Greater Boston does a better job of aggregating it than Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub. If you didn’t know that already, well, now you do.

(Disclosure: Media Nation is part of Gaffin’s Boston Blogs advertising network.)

Earlier item.

Patching in to AOL’s Patch

AOL’s local-news initiative, Patch, has been ramping up in Massachusetts in recent months. The effort deserves a full post, so consider this a placeholder. Universal Hub has been all over Patch, chronicling the departure of several GateHouse Media employees who’ve signed on as Patch editors.

My tendency is not to get too excited when a national corporation with no roots in journalism decides to take on hyperlocal news. There have simply been too many instances of the suits deciding that journalism isn’t as lucrative as they had hoped and then pulling the plug a year or two down the line.

Based on Arlington Patch, the sites seem attractive and easy to navigate, with a strong emphasis on community participation. But I don’t know that I see anything that would make me choose it over GateHouse’s Wicked Local Arlington site, or Boston.com’s Your Town page for Arlington.

Besides, I think online local news works best when it grows from the ground up. Local blogs vary wildly in quality. But I’d rather check in on Bob Sprague’s Your Arlington blog than to spend my time with the progeny of Steve Case.

That said, it’s early. Maybe Patch will represent some sort of breakthrough. We’ll see.

Some quiet (so far) upgrades to Boston.com

If you’re a regular visitor to the Boston Globe’s Web site, Boston.com, you may have noticed some new features creeping into view during the past week. Media Nation has obtained an internal e-mail written by Bennie DiNardo, the Globe’s deputy managing editor for multimedia. Here is what’s going on:

• A one-and-a-half- to two-minute daily video of news headlines, called “GlobeToday,” will appear on the home page every weekday from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. I viewed a sample on YouTube and found it to be slick and spritely, though limited by the extremely short length.

• A new section called “The Angle” is described by DiNardo as an “online news magazine that pulls together the most provocative content on Boston.com that day and engages readers to join in the conversation on these hot topics.” It is produced by the editorial and Ideas sections.

• A particularly promising new feature is “Thought Leader,” a gathering spot for blogs by a variety of folks in the community — from ACLU of Massachusetts executive director Carol Rose to Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce. Other contributors thus far are my “Beat the Press” colleague Kara Miller, Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, Boston University journalism-department chairman Lou Ureneck and music buff Ben Collins. I am told that the bloggers are unpaid, which could limit the amount of work that folks are willing to put into it. But this bears watching.

Other new features include “App Sampler,” a blog in which Hiawatha Bray will, you know, sample apps (it doesn’t appear to be online yet); “Munch Madness,” some sort of interactive attempt to tie together the NCAA tournament and eating; and improvements to breaking news and sports coverage.

As is generally the case with Boston.com, a lot of this stuff could be easier to find. But what’s impressive is the air of experimentation, and the New York Times Co.’s willingness to invest modest amounts of money at a time when other newspaper companies remain in cutback mode.

I also think it’s smart that Boston.com continues to move in the direction of being a different product from the Globe. Since the idea is to maintain paid print and electronic editions alongside a free Web site, they should each offer a different experience. To that end, I’ll repeat what I’ve said in the past: I would get rid of Boston.com’s “Today’s Globe” feature. Though I think all (or most) of the Globe’s content should be available on Boston.com, it shouldn’t be packaged exactly the same way. (By way of comparison, BostonHerald.com has a very different look and feel from the print edition.)

Good news from an organization that appeared to be on the ropes a year ago.

Mapping potholes with help from readers

Boston.com is using SeeClickFix to produce a pothole map for Greater Boston. The New York Times recently reported on SeeClickFix, which is based in New Haven. Simple technology plus community interaction — what more do you want?

How Boston.com got search right

A fascinating post by Mac Slocum at the Nieman Journalism Lab. (Via Universal Hub.)

Dear Next Owner of the Boston Globe …

On the eve of what may be an announcement that the New York Times Co. is selling the Boston Globe, Boston.com editor David Beard weighs in with a smart piece for Poynter Online on “10 hopeful points about the future of journalism.”

Although perhaps Dave missed Dan Gillmor’s 11th rule.

Boston.com editor blames Celtics

Boston.com editor Dave Beard says that his site’s readership numbers are down over the previous May and June in large part because of the Boston Celtics’ early flameout. Since the Kevin Garnett-less Celts were eliminated on May 17, that explanation definitely makes some sense. Beard writes:

Two words: Boston Celtics.

No rolling rally. No euphoria. No heart-stopping NBA finals, sadly, with photo-friendly celebs packing the Garden. No May-to-June buildup for such a record season.

That said, despite a 40 percent dropoff from Sports in June pageviews, we made up most of it with News and Arts and Entertainment. By internal measurement, we came very close to our record June number for pageviews and for unique users, and we showed 11 percent more visits that the preceding June.

And, not to be a salesman on you, but July is looking very strong.

In short: We don’t read too much into a month or two of the widely variable and smallish samplings of Nielsen, as you mentioned in your lede. But we’re not relaxing one bit.

Boston.com’s missing readers

Web readership numbers tend to fluctuate so wildly that only a fool would try to read any deeper meaning into month-to-month changes.

Still, it’s hard not to notice that the number of unique monthly visitors to Boston.com, the Boston Globe’s Web site, has dropped considerably over the past two months, according to Nielsen Online figures provided by a reliable source who asked not to be identified.

After hitting an all-time peak of 8.5 million visitors in January of this year, perhaps tied to President Obama’s inauguration, the figure plunged all the way to 4 million in June, a drop of more than 23 percent over the previous June and the lowest number in two years.

Last June, then-senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were engaged in the final stages of their hard-fought battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, and I’ve been told that Boston.com’s political coverage does well in search engines and aggregators. So that could be an explanation.

Or maybe it’s Red Sox fatigue — it’s possible that the Sox have been so good for so long that casual fans are checking in less frequently than they used to. Could it be the Globe’s labor unrest? (Unlikely, though it’s interesting that readership figures for the Globe’s corporate cousin NYTimes.com were also down by 21 percent in May.) Or maybe it’s just one of those things.

Based on Nielsen’s May figures, Boston.com is now the ninth-ranked newspaper Web site overall — down from sixth for all of 2008, though it’s still the most widely read regional newspaper site in the United States*.

Among all news sites, including perennial ratings leaders MSNBC.com, CNN.com and Yahoo News, Boston.com now ranks 32nd, down from 17th in January.

What follows are Boston.com’s unique monthly visitors over the past two years. Percentages are increases and decreases over the previous year.

• June 2009: 4,020,000 (-23.2%)
• May 2009: 4,397,000 (-11.4%)
• April 2009: 5,888,000 (+33.0%)
• March 2009: 5,742,000 (+37.2%)
• Feb. 2009: 5,659,000 (+15.4%)
• Jan. 2009: 8,535,000 (+64.3%)
• Dec. 2008: 4,086,000 (-6.4%)
• Nov 2008: 5,436,000 (+12.3%)
• Oct 2008: 6,133,000 (+11.4%)
• Sept 2008: 8,610,000 (+121.5%)
• Aug 2008: 4,479,000 (+3.9%)
• July 2008: 4,891,000 (+21.4%)
• June 2008: 5,233,000 (+23.0%)
• May 2008: 4,962,000 (+22.9%)
• April 2008: 4,428,000 (+6.2%)
• March 2008: 4,184,000 (-1.4%)
• Feb. 2008: 4,904,000 (N/A)
• Jan. 2008: 5,194,000 (N/A)
• Dec. 2007: 4,364,000 (N/A)
• Nov. 2007: 4,839,000 (N/A)
• Oct. 2007: 5,506,000 (N/A)
• Sept. 2007: 3,887,000 (N/A)
• Aug. 2007: 4,311,000 (N/A)
• July 2007: 4,029,000 (N/A)
• June 2007: 4,254,000 (N/A)
• May 2007: 4,038,000 (N/A)
• April 2007: 4,171,000 (N/A)
• March 2007: 4,245,000 (N/A)

*I’ve been asked how Boston.com can be considered the most-read regional newspaper site when the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post and New York’s Daily News are all ahead of it.

My answer is that the LA Times has long been considered a national paper. Indeed, Slate includes it as one of the five papers it summarizes in its “Today’s Papers” feature. (The others are the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.)

It’s only recently that Boston.com’s readership dropped below those of the other three papers, so perhaps I’ll have to rethink my “most-read regional newspaper site” formulation. Both New York and Chicago are huge metropolitan areas that dwarf Greater Boston. Yet the Tribune, the Post and the Daily News are all more regional than they are national.

I’ll have to ponder that for a bit.