Hail, hail...PATCH is dead

I was a journalist for many years. I worked primarily in print newspapers, but I did blog and the newspaper I published did create a news website.

In addition, I was an active member of the New Jersey Press Association as part of my duties as publisher of The Courier, a weekly newspaper in Northern Monmouth County that covered 10 towns in the area known as "the Bayshore." However, though I worked full-time for The Courier, I still wrote for other newspapers, depending upon how much more income I needed to make.

Between 2006-2009, the most active discussions between journalists at NJPA, in professional periodicals, magazines and on telephones all over this country was 'How can we monetize news on the Internet?'

Actual journalists, as opposed to what cropped up later on in abominations like PATCH.com, tried to earnestly figure out how to interpret traditional journalism and news organizations to the web in a way that would allow for the same quality of work and quality of life for serious, educated and experienced journalists.

I understand from credible media these days that PATCH.com is on its last legs, and to this I say: HURRAH!

Well, to my understanding, an effective monetization plan never did show up, though NJ.com, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal did do the most work in advancing such concepts. However, it was PATCH that held the unique place in media history as destroying many daily and weekly newspapers, ensuring that when it collapsed only a few publications would be standing (online and in print) and so these publications would become king-makers. This is not a good future for journalism because it smacks of the darkest periods of news, when publishers such as Randolph Herst roamed the land like predatory dinosaurs looking to eat smaller publications.

I have always criticized PATCH, not because it closed down so many publications of my era, mine among them, but because it lacked any quality in its presentation. Its writing was poor. The use of language by its reporters and editors was atrocious; in all, it was a generation of 'journalists' where the blind were leading the blind.

Every now and again, in every trade, a herd of young people with great enthusiasm and absolutely no aptitude at what they do seem to take over for a while, destroying everything that was before. In some cases, these young people actually do have something to say -- these are people who are the likes of  Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Yet, the more common experience is that young people simply, by virtue of their lack of years or experience at their craft, coupled with their determination that they know everything (though they know very little) push their way into a field, destroy the frail ecology of an industry and fail miserably and end by sitting on some corner somewhere trying to look pathetic and sorry for their actions.

PATCH's inaugural staff perhaps?

All PATCH cost the American public was its tradition of the independent newspaper and a vibrant media. As media is the informal check or safeguard against governmental excess, PATCH and organizations like it gave license to political grifters and thieves of every make and model to loot public coffers from sea to shining sea as its legion of inexperienced college prep reporters and editors hacked away at journalistic standards and the English language. Violence the scale of the Little Big Horn was visited upon the written word and there was much metaphoric blood-letting done before this little revolution by AOL (in the form of PATCH) finally wound down and, thankfully, began to fade into that good night.

I knew PATCH editors who were firm that their publication would do no investigative stories and would break no critical information about anyone. This was despite the fact that the newspapers PATCH supplanted and shuttered (by their advertising people all but giving away space to anyone who would take it) newspapers with long-standing histories of actual service to their communities.

So, for some years and up until now, no one has been looking at who has been spending what money at town halls wherever PATCH has been "strong" and, consequently, wherever PATCH has been strong, freedom of speech and service to the community has been weak.

PATCH was a plague and now (with its passing) the conversation returns, once again, to how to effectively monetize newspapers online. I hope veterans of PATCH do not believe they advanced this argument even a little. All they did was destroy one of our nation's most precious resources: the news. With Ariana Huffington at the helm of AOL's PATCH, public discourse about celebrity gossip and Hollywood fluff eclipsed discussions of governmental budgets, fraud, waste and abuse, as well as public corruption all around this nation; and every single community in this country suffered for it.

I bid PATCH a hale 'goodbye' and am glad to have lived long enough to come to its wake. Though my time covering news and events is over, I have high hopes that the institution of the news will again re-emerge after this terrible hurricane that was PATCH.

Of course, in my day (which was the 1990s and 2000s), not all newspapers had the best of intents at all times, nor all journalists (myself among them). However, I feel confident saying mostly anyone who made their living in print knew how to write a story, in proper English, using AP Style, employing photographs that were taken fairly well, in a timely manner and discussing topics more weighty than benefit chicken dinners in the community or what hairstyle local celebrities had begun wearing. No well-crafted misuse of established ethical journalistic standards could approach the outright murder of the news that was done by the shaking, child-like hands of that enormous screaming baby that was PATCH.

I mourn PATCH not at all. If anything, it should be cremated and its ashes scattered over the sea to avoid the prospect of it ever being resurrected by some demented entrepreneur. Hail, hail the wanna-be king is dead...and good riddance.