Patch.com has started up in Iowa City. But what difference will it make?

A company that has spent the past few years turning smaller communities into nitch markets by using volunteer “citizen journalists” is making its way to Iowa. It will be interesting to see what they do. But, my guess is that they will do nothing.

Watch this three-minute introduction from the local editor.

There is nothing here that isn’t already here: Media cover police and fire, they cover local government, and they boost business by running profiles of local merchants and taking pictures of boozers out on the town.

Do we need more of this?

Where is the depth? Where is the good writing? The focus on inequalities? Stories on people other than the usual suspects of cops, lawyers, business owners, elites, college students? Just having more people writing about our community isn’t doing anything interesting.

Still Patch.com’s response to the FCC’s judgement that local news has all but dried up states that they are “filling the gaps in local journalism.” (The LA Times disagrees)

Patch.com’s response also says:

• Patch currently publishes nearly 5,000 articles per day across its 827 sites, and posts new content every 12 seconds.
• The comScore data just released for May shows a 33% UV increase for Patch, from 6.9m UVs to 9.2 UVs.
• We launched our Local Voices blogging platform on May 4. Between a week after that launch and today, we’ve gone from 3,994 to 5,920 bloggers – an increase of 48%, The number of blog posts has grown 234% (from 3,609 to 12,067). Our bloggers include mayors, state senators, congressmen, councilmen, trustees, county commissioners, activists, and other local influentials, in addition to any citizens who want to share their perspectives on issues and topics of interest in their towns.
• Patch has nearly 700,000 daily newsletter subscribers.
• Last week, Patch broke the story of Gov. Chris Christie’s use of a state-funded helicopter to attend his son’s high school baseball game; national outlets including the NYT, WSJ, CNN, NBC News, ABC News, Fox News picked up the story and credited Patch.
• Patch and Huffington Post are both benefiting from editorial collaborations, including using Patch’s local reporting to tell a national story on the death of bin Laden; GOP Rep. Rob Woodall’s response to a constituent asking about Medicare (“You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, ‘When do I decide I’m going to take care of me?’”); the local reaction to Weinergate; and of course the Gov. Christie flap.

What does any of this say about the content of the journalism? Local reaction to Weinergate?

What?

(Oh, that Patch.com response came from a VP of communications, not from the newsroom)

Can we please focus on doing news that matters, cause mainstream media ain’t doing so well at this, either.

A quick look at today’s Patch.com out of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, near where I once lived, shows apparently what Patch.com cares about – there, at least.

– A story about homework.

– About a person who saved another person’s life.

– A business profile.

– An useless opinion pieces.

Isn’t this stuff (though it is good to save other’s lives) the same “shit” people complain about being in local, mainstream media?

I hope Iowa City’s Patch can care more and provide us with what we can’t get elsewhere: stories of diverse neighborhoods, stories of wrongdoing, stories that matter. If they can’t do this, let’s pull the plug.