Patch employees took a big gut punch to their operations late last month as hundreds of online journalists were laid off as part of new ownership Hale Global’s reorganization plan, according to multiple news services.
Hale Global, an investment firm specializing in turning around troubled companies, purchased a majority stake of the online, community-based newsgathering service from AOL in mid-January.
Two weeks into that venture and a reported three-quarters of the staff have been given their pink slips. However, neither Hale Global nor AOL would confirm dozens of social media posts from former Patch employees stating that as many as 80 percent of site editors lost their jobs at 900 sites nationwide, McClatchy news service reports. The dismissed workers received eight weeks’ severance pay and their unused vacation time, according to McClatchy.
The gilroy.patch.com website was still up and running as of Wednesday, however.
In October 2013, then Gilroy Patch Editor Jennifer Squires announced her last day Oct. 15, saying “company restructuring eliminated my position.” She passed on inquiries on to then Associate Editorial Director Kari Hulac, whose linkedin.com account has her finishing her employment with Patch in Jan. 2014.
Patch, developed by AOL Chief Executive Jim Armstrong while he was with Google in 2007, has lost as much as $300 million since its inception, according to a McClatchy news service report.
“We were gutted,” said one New Jersey Patch editor, speaking to The Record in Hackensack, New Jersey, who was asked to stay with the company. The editor asked not to be identified
“Patch isn’t going to be a news service any more. There’s no way that we’re going to have the people on the ground to do what needs to be done,” said another laid-off editor.
Employees told The Record they expect Hale Global to turn the sites into places where community members post information, and where editors post links to stories gathered by other news organizations. Such is the case with the Gilroy site.
