There is an effort being made to get Patch.com to explain what it’s doing with its local editions, especially in light of the terminations of local editors and the disappearance of actual local news stories.
A query was sent to the Patch bosses about the number of readers that local Patch editions enjoy.
Find out what's happening in Forest Hills-Regent Squarewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
This is important because there actually may be just a handful of people out there trading comments with one another. There’s no way to tell.
Find out what's happening in Forest Hills-Regent Squarewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The question also matters because it may not be worth your time and trouble to write and post blogs or comments to the local site if there’s practically nobody out there reading them. Of course, that’s your choice.
The question to Patch was: “How many readers currently are there for Forest Hills-Regent Square Patch?”
The query was sent to Patch HQ via email because they have no published phone number. It was directed to Patch.com’s corporate link, which states:
“Media Inquiries: If you're a journalist writing a story about Patch, email media@patch.com.”
That request went out Sunday morning, November 3. It’s now 72 hours later -- a very long time in the news business -- and this is the response they’ve made:
"If you have emailed us with a media request for a story about Patch (not a story suggestion for Patch!), please sit tight and we'll get right back to you. Thank you for dropping us a line!"
That email response is not informative (although the exclamation points are cheerful), but at least it arrived almost instantaneously.
That’s because it’s a pre-programmed robo-note, automatically fired back by a computer, not a person.
Perhaps that’s all they intend to say. If anything substantive shows up, you’ll see it here.